kubectl diff on PowerShell?

Question

kubectl can diff configuration (blog, docs).

On Linux, this works fine (WSL, Ubuntu 18, bash). It gives me sensible output similar to the following.

$ kubectl diff --filename some-resources.yaml diff -u -N /tmp/LIVE-022965340/apps.v1.Deployment.… /tmp/MERGED-396067851/apps.v1.Deployment.… --- /tmp/LIVE-022965340/apps.v1.Deployment.… 2020-07-20 17:06:21.444811700 +0200 +++ /tmp/MERGED-396067851/apps.v1.Deployment.… 2020-07-20 17:06:21.470315500 +0200 @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration: | {"apiVersion":"apps/v1",… creationTimestamp: "2020-07-16T15:13:03Z" - generation: 1 + generation: 2 name: … namespace: … resourceVersion: "32827467" @@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ - chown www-data:www-data /files/ -R;chmod -R 755 /files/; chmod -R g+ws /files/ command: - /bin/bash - - -c + - -cv image: … imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent name: init-sites-volume 

On PowerShell, kubectl diff fails (PowerShell 7, Windows 10).

PS > kubectl diff --filename some-resources.yaml error: failed to run "diff": executable file not found in %PATH% 

It seems that either kubectl can't find an executable named diff, or it trips up over diff being an alias for Compare-Object, which of course has very different syntax than Linux' diff.

Is it possible to get kubectl diff to work on PowerShell? If so, which diff-tool should I install and what should $env:KUBECTL_EXTERNAL_DIFF=… be set to?

Answer 1

This can be done by installing DiffUtils for Windows. The kubectl diff is using the Unix diff program so Windows will need some help with this. Simply:

• Install the DiffUtils

• Make sure the bin folder is mapped in your Win10 PATH variable (should be done automatically)

• Restart the machine

Please let me know if that helped.