Search code examples
kubectldocker-desktop

Docker-Desktop context select not updating the kubectl active context

I'm running Docker Desktop for Windows with WSL2 integration. I'm also running minikube. The Docker Desktop GUI correctly shows both known contexts:

Docker desktop GUI context menu showing available contexts

I've selected the 'minikube' context because that's the one I want to use.

However when I go into the WSL terminal and run kubectl config get-contexts, I can only see the docker-desktop context, which is the active one:

admin@RODDY01-PC:/mnt/c/workspace$ kubectl config get-contexts
CURRENT   NAME             CLUSTER          AUTHINFO         NAMESPACE
*         docker-desktop   docker-desktop   docker-desktop

Running which kubectl reveals that I'm using the kubectl that docker-desktop installed when doing the WSL integration:

admin@RODDY01-PC:/mnt/c/workspace$ which kubectl
/usr/local/bin/kubectl

admin@RODDY01-PC:/mnt/c/workspace$ ls -la /usr/local/bin/kubectl
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 55 Aug  1 17:49 /usr/local/bin/kubectl -> /mnt/wsl/docker-desktop/cli-tools/usr/local/bin/kubectl

(In Windows, where kubectl is bundled as part of docker at C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\resources\bin\kubectl.exe, it correctly shows both contexts and indicates minikube is the active; it's just the Linux/WSL2 kubectl instance that's not updating/recognizing the active and available contexts.)

How can I get Docker Desktop to properly update the kubectl active context in WSL2?

Version info: Docker Desktop 3.5.2; Windows 10 Professional; Debian 10 on WSL2.

Solution

  • The problem turned out to be that I actually had two kube config files.

    Windows, which was correctly being updated by the GUI, had a config located at: C:\Users\<username\.kube\config.

    WSL also had one, at ~/.kube/config. This one was NOT up-to-date, and was actually missing the entire minikube context definition.

    I solved this by setting an environment variable in my ~/.bashrc file to point $KUBECONFIG to the Windows kube config file. One of my colleagues having a similar issue instead deleted the linux file and created a symlink to the Windows one; both solutions work.

    Tangentially related: the minikube configuration include certificates that use Windows-style paths in the config file; it was necessary to embed these certificates into the configuration file in order for them to work properly cross-OS.