Exec commands on kubernetes pods with root access

Use kubectl describe pod ... to find the node running your Pod and the container ID (docker://...)
SSH into the node
run docker exec -it -u root ID /bin/bash

There are some plugins for kubectl that may help you achieve this: https://github.com/jordanwilson230/kubectl-plugins

One of the plugins called, 'ssh', will allow you to exec as root user by running (for example) kubectl ssh -u root -p nginx-0

bash docker kubernetes

Building on @jordanwilson230's answer he also developed a bash-script called exec-as which uses Docker-in-Docker to accomplish this: https://github.com/jordanwilson230/kubectl-plugins/blob/krew/kubectl-exec-as

When installed via kubectl plugin manager krew → kubectl krew install exec-as you can simply

kubectl exec-as -u <username> <podname> -- /bin/bash

This only works in Kubernetes clusters which allow priviledged containers.

CodeHunter