Install Kubernetes Metrics Server

17 Apr 2025 in Blog

Want to be able to easily see what Kubernetes pod has the highest CPU load (among other information) by using the kubectl top command? Install the Kubernetes metrics-server!

1. kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server/releases/latest/download/components.yaml
2. Edit the metrics-server deployment to disable TLS certificate validation. Otherwise, the Metrics Server pod won’t start. Add --kubelet-insecure-tls to the args of the metrics-server container. kubectl edit -n kube-system deploy metrics-server

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: metrics-server
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
      - args:
        - --kubelet-insecure-tls #    <----- ADD THIS
        name: metrics-server
...

Caution:
Don’t use this to forward metrics to a monitoring solution. Metrics Server is meant only for Kubernetes autoscaling purposes (and to be able to use this command).