Field Selectors

Field selectors let you select Kubernetes objects based on the value of one or more resource fields. Here are some examples of field selector queries:

  • metadata.name=my-service
  • metadata.namespace!=default
  • status.phase=Pending

This kubectl command selects all Pods for which the value of the status.phase field is Running:

kubectl get pods --field-selector status.phase=Running

Supported fields

Supported field selectors vary by Kubernetes resource type. All resource types support the metadata.name and metadata.namespace fields. Using unsupported field selectors produces an error. For example:

kubectl get ingress --field-selector foo.bar=baz

Error from server (BadRequest): Unable to find "ingresses" that match label selector "", field selector "foo.bar=baz": "foo.bar" is not a known field selector: only "metadata.name", "metadata.namespace"

List of supported fields

Kind Fields
Pod spec.nodeName
spec.restartPolicy
spec.schedulerName
spec.serviceAccountName
spec.hostNetwork
status.phase
status.podIP
status.nominatedNodeName
Event involvedObject.kind
involvedObject.namespace
involvedObject.name
involvedObject.uid
involvedObject.apiVersion
involvedObject.resourceVersion
involvedObject.fieldPath
reason
reportingComponent
source
type
Secret type
Namespace status.phase
ReplicaSet status.replicas
ReplicationController status.replicas
Job status.successful
Node spec.unschedulable
CertificateSigningRequest spec.signerName

Supported operators

You can use the =, ==, and != operators with field selectors (= and == mean the same thing). This kubectl command, for example, selects all Kubernetes Services that aren't in the default namespace:

kubectl get services  --all-namespaces --field-selector metadata.namespace!=default

Chained selectors

As with label and other selectors, field selectors can be chained together as a comma-separated list. This kubectl command selects all Pods for which the status.phase does not equal Running and the spec.restartPolicy field equals Always:

kubectl get pods --field-selector=status.phase!=Running,spec.restartPolicy=Always

Multiple resource types

You can use field selectors across multiple resource types. This kubectl command selects all Statefulsets and Services that are not in the default namespace:

kubectl get statefulsets,services --all-namespaces --field-selector metadata.namespace!=default
Last modified April 04, 2024 at 11:18 AM PST: Add missing field selectors (ddc49f00d5)