crictl

4 December 20252 min read

crictl provides a CLI for CRI-compatible container runtimes. It is similiar to other container CLIs like Docker. It can be used to control the container runtime of k3s.

Usage

crictl [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

COMMANDS:

• attach: Attach to a running container

• create: Create a new container

• exec: Run a command in a running container

• version: Display runtime version information

• images, image, img: List images

• inspect: Display the status of one or more containers

• inspecti: Return the status of one or more images

• imagefsinfo: Return image filesystem info

• inspectp: Display the status of one or more pods

• logs: Fetch the logs of a container

• metricsp: List pod metrics. Metrics are unstructured key/value pairs gathered by CRI meant to replace cAdvisor's /metrics/cadvisor endpoint.

• metricdescs: List metric descriptors. Returns information about the metrics available through the CRI.

• port-forward: Forward local port to a pod

• ps: List containers

• pull: Pull an image from a registry

• run: Run a new container inside a sandbox

• runp: Run a new pod

• rm: Remove one or more containers

• rmi: Remove one or more images

• rmp: Remove one or more pods

• pods: List pods

• start: Start one or more created containers

• info: Display information of the container runtime

• stop: Stop one or more running containers

• stopp: Stop one or more running pods

• update: Update one or more running containers

• config: Get and set crictl client configuration options

• stats: List container(s) resource usage statistics

• statsp: List pod(s) resource usage statistics

• completion: Output bash shell completion code

• checkpoint: Checkpoint one or more running containers

• events, event: Stream the events of containers

• update-runtime-config Update the runtime configuration

• help, h: Shows a list of commands or help for one command

crictl by default connects on Unix to:

• unix:///run/containerd/containerd.sock or

• unix:///run/crio/crio.sock or

• unix:///var/run/cri-dockerd.sock