Unable to Copy data from POD to local using kubectl cp command

Question

I need to copy dump data from pod to local. Below the commands I am trying but I am getting error: unexpected EOF

kubectl cp device-database-79fc964c8-q7ncc:tmp /Users/raja
error: unexpected EOF

or

kubectl cp device-database-79fc964c8-q7ncc:tmp/plsql_data/prod.dump /Users/raja/prod.dump
error: unexpected EOF

kubectl version

kubectl version --client
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"21", GitVersion:"v1.21.0", GitCommit:"cb303e613a121a29364f75cc67d3d580833a7479", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2021-04-08T16:31:21Z", GoVersion:"go1.16.1", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/amd64"}

Can anyone help how to fix this issue?

Thanks

Answer 1

For newer versions of kubectl, adding a retries=-1 flag may resolve the issue:

kubectl cp --retries=-1 pod-www-xxx-yyy-zzz:/path/to/remote/dir ~/local/dir 

Answer 2

Using a "cat" command, rather than "cp" worked for me -- but only after 3 attempts.

The "cp" command failed over and over to get the whole file.

This "cat" style command did better each time.

So try this and see if your odds improve!

kubectl exec -i [pod name] -c [container name] -- cat [path to file] > [output file]