L1 Command Reference (Cheat Sheet)¶

This curated library of oc commands is intended for Level 1 support operations. The focus is on read-only diagnostics, log collection, and safe administrative actions that do not disrupt the production environment.

Cluster Health & Context¶

Commands to identify where you are and the general state of the platform.

Action	Command
Check current user	`oc whoami`
Check API status/version	`oc version`
Check Cluster Operators	`oc get co`
List all nodes	`oc get nodes`
View cluster events	`oc get events -A --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'`

Workload Diagnostics (Pods & Deployments)¶

Use these when an application is reported as down or behaving incorrectly.

List all pods in a namespace¶

oc get pods -n <namespace>

# List pods with wide output (IPs and Node names)

oc get pods -n <namespace> -o wide

# Find pods that are NOT in 'Running' state across all namespaces

oc get pods -A --field-selector=status.phase!=Running

# Get full details of a pod (for troubleshooting 'Pending' or 'Evicted')

oc describe pod <pod_name> -n <namespace>

# View logs for a specific container in a pod

oc logs <pod_name> -c <container_name> -n <namespace>

# View logs for a pod that recently crashed

oc logs <pod_name> -n <namespace> --previous

Resource Monitoring¶

Commands to identify resource exhaustion (CPU/Memory) at the pod or node level.

# View resource usage of all nodes

oc adm top nodes

# View resource usage of all pods in a namespace

oc adm top pods -n <namespace>

# Check the Resource Quotas of a namespace

oc get resourcequota -n <namespace>

# Check LimitRanges (default CPU/Mem requests)

oc get limitrange -n <namespace>

Networking & Access¶

Commands to verify connectivity and external access points.

# List all Routes and their associated Hosts/URLs

oc get routes -n <namespace>

# Check Services and their Target Ports

oc get svc -n <namespace>

# Check Endpoints to ensure the Service is linked to active Pods

oc get endpoints <service_name> -n <namespace>

# Test DNS resolution from a debug pod

oc debug node/<node_name> -- chroot /host dig <service>.<namespace>.svc.cluster.local

Storage Operations¶

Commands to verify Persistent Volume Claims.

# Check PVC status (Bound, Pending, Lost)

oc get pvc -n <namespace>

# View details of a Persistent Volume

oc describe pv <pv_name>

# Check available Storage Classes

oc get sc

Safe Maintenance Actions¶

L1-approved actions to resolve minor glitches without reconfiguring the app.

# Restart a Deployment (triggers a rolling update)

oc rollout restart deployment/<deployment_name> -n <namespace>

# Scale a Deployment (e.g., to zero and back to 1 to refresh)

oc scale deployment/<deployment_name> --replicas=0 -n <namespace>

# Copy a file from a pod to your local machine for analysis

oc cp <namespace>/<pod_name>:/path/to/file ./local_file

Pro-Tip: Append -w (watch) to almost any get command to see real-time updates (e.g., oc get pods -w).