--- title: Installing and Configuring kubectl --- `kubectl` is a CLI utility for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. It's required for many maintenance and administrative tasks in Rancher 2.x. ## Installation See [kubectl Installation](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/) for installation on your operating system. ## Configuration When you create a Kubernetes cluster with RKE, RKE creates a `kube_config_cluster.yml` in the local directory that contains credentials to connect to your new cluster with tools like `kubectl` or `helm`. You can copy this file to `$HOME/.kube/config` or if you are working with multiple Kubernetes clusters, set the `KUBECONFIG` environmental variable to the path of `kube_config_cluster.yml`. ``` export KUBECONFIG=$(pwd)/kube_config_cluster.yml ``` Test your connectivity with `kubectl` and see if you can get the list of nodes back. ``` kubectl get nodes NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION 165.227.114.63 Ready controlplane,etcd,worker 11m v1.10.1 165.227.116.167 Ready controlplane,etcd,worker 11m v1.10.1 165.227.127.226 Ready controlplane,etcd,worker 11m v1.10.1 ```