kubetail

tails logs from multiple pods simultaneously

TLDR

Tail pods matching a name pattern

$ kubetail [pod-name-prefix]

Tail pods by label selector

$ kubetail -l [app=myapp]

Tail in a specific namespace

$ kubetail [pattern] -n [namespace]

Tail a specific container (repeatable)

$ kubetail [pattern] -c [container]

Show only the last N minutes of logs

$ kubetail [pattern] -s [10m]

Show timestamps

$ kubetail [pattern] --timestamps

Tail with regex matching

$ kubetail "[^app1|.*demo.*]" --regex

Dry-run: list matching pods without tailing

$ kubetail [pattern] -d

SYNOPSIS

kubetail [pod-pattern] [options]

kubetail is a Bash script that aggregates and tails log output from multiple Kubernetes pods simultaneously. It matches pods by name prefix, regex, or label selector and streams their logs in a single terminal, using color-coded output to distinguish lines from different pods.The tool is useful when debugging distributed applications or microservices where related log entries are spread across several pod replicas. Under the hood, kubetail spawns multiple `kubectl logs --follow` processes and merges their output, optionally filtering by namespace, container, or duration.Defaults for most flags can be set via environment variables such as KUBETAILNAMESPACE, KUBETAILSINCE, KUBETAILTAIL, and KUBETAILCOLORED_OUTPUT.

PARAMETERS

PATTERN

Pod name pattern (prefix match by default, regex with --regex).

-c, --container NAME

Container name (repeatable for multiple containers).

-t, --context CONTEXT

Kubernetes context to use.

-l, --selector SELECTOR

Label selector (e.g., app=myapp).

-n, --namespace NAMESPACE

Target namespace.

-e, --regex MODE

Match mode: regex or substring.

-s, --since DURATION

Show logs since relative duration (e.g., 10m, 1h).

-p, --previous BOOL

Retrieve logs from previous pod instances.

-f, --follow BOOL

Follow log stream (default true).

-d, --dry-run

Print matching pods/containers without tailing.

-k, --colored-output MODE

Coloring mode: pod, line (default), loglevel, or false.

-z, --skip-colors LIST

Comma-separated color indices to skip.

-P, --prefix BOOL

Toggle pod name prefix on each line.

-b, --line-buffered BOOL

Control line buffering.

-j, --jq SELECTOR

Apply jq selector to JSON log lines.

-r, --cluster NAME

Kubeconfig cluster name.

--tail LINES

Limit number of recent lines per pod.

--timestamps

Display timestamps on log lines.

-i, --show-color-index BOOL

Display color index with pod prefix.

-v, --version

Show version.

-h, --help

Display help information.

CAVEATS

Third-party Bash script (not part of kubectl). Requires `kubectl` configured with cluster access. For Go-based alternatives with similar functionality, see stern.

HISTORY

kubetail was created by Johan Haleby to simplify tailing logs from multiple Kubernetes pods with a single command.