How to List All Pods and Their Nodes in Kubernetes

When managing a Kubernetes cluster, it's often helpful to see which pods are running on which nodes. This is useful for troubleshooting, capacity planning, and understanding your cluster's workload distribution.

In this guide, you'll learn how to list all pods and the nodes they're assigned to using kubectl and a few handy command-line tricks.

Prerequisites

You'll need:

• Access to a Kubernetes cluster
• kubectl installed and configured

List Pods with Their Nodes Using kubectl

The quickest way to see pods and their nodes is with:

kubectl get pods -o wide -n <namespace>

This command adds a NODE column to the output, showing where each pod is running. To see all namespaces, use:

kubectl get pods -o wide --all-namespaces

Custom Output with kubectl and awk

For a cleaner, more scriptable output, you can combine kubectl with awk:

kubectl get pods -o=custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,NAMESPACE:.metadata.namespace,NODE:.spec.nodeName --all-namespaces

This prints just the pod name, namespace, and node name for every pod in the cluster.

Example Output

NAME           NAMESPACE     NODE
web-1234       default       node-1
api-5678       staging       node-2
db-9012        prod          node-3

Why This Matters

Knowing which pods run on which nodes helps you:

• Debug node-specific issues
• Spot uneven workload distribution
• Plan for scaling or maintenance

Next Steps

Try combining these commands with label selectors or JSONPath queries for more advanced filtering. As your cluster grows, consider using monitoring tools like Lens or K9s for a more visual overview of pod placement.