How to copy files from kubernetes Pods to local system

Question

I\'m trying to copy files from Kubernetes Pods to my local system. I am getting the below error while running following command:

kubectl cp aks-ssh2-6cd4948         


        

Answer 1

The command in the question posted is absolutely right. As answered before this particular issue seems to be missing tar in the container. I actually did not know it was needed, but confirmed that the pod has it:

# find / -name tar
/bin/tar
/usr/lib/mime/packages/tar
/usr/share/doc/tar

My error was using . to copy to the current directory (works with cp and scp) because it needs the full path, as shown in the original question:

kubectl cp pod-name-shown-in-get-pods:/path/to/filename /local/dir/filename

But not:

kubectl cp pod-name-shown-in-get-pods:/path/to/filename .

Which gives:

error: open .: is a directory
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names

Now the tar in the error message makes sense!