The kubectl utility is a command line tool that interfaces with the Kubernetes API server to run commands against the Kubernetes cluster. The kubectl command is typically run on the master node of the cluster, although you can also use the on Oracle Linux Cloud Native Environment operator node. The kubectl utility effectively grants full administrative rights to the cluster and all of the nodes in the cluster.

This section discusses setting up the kubectl command to access a Kubernetes cluster from either a master node or an operator node.