Configure kubectl command to access remote kubernetes cluster on azure

For anyone landing into this question, az cli solves the problem.

az aks get-credentials --name MyManagedCluster --resource-group MyResourceGroup

This will merge the Azure context in your local .kube\config (in case you have a connection already set up, mine was C:\Users\[user]\.kube\config) and switch to the Azure Kubernetes Service connection.

Reference

Found a way to access remote kubernetes cluster without ssh'ing to one of the nodes in cluster. You need to edit ~/.kube/config file as below :

apiVersion: v1 
clusters:    
- cluster:
    server: http://<master-ip>:<port>
  name: test 
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: test
    user: test
  name: test

Then set context by executing:

kubectl config use-context test

After this you should be able to interact with the cluster.

Note : To add certification and key use following link : http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/kubeconfig-file/

Alternately, you can also try following command

kubectl config set-cluster test-cluster --server=http://<master-ip>:<port> --api-version=v1
kubectl config use-context test-cluster

Locate the .kube directory on your k8s machine.
On linux/Unix it will be at /root/.kube
On windows it will be at C:/User/<username>/.kube
Copy the config file from the .kube folder of the k8s cluster to .kube folder of your local machine
Copy client-certificate: /etc/cfc/conf/kubecfg.crt
client-key: /etc/cfc/conf/kubecfg.key
to .kube folder of your local machine.
Edit the config file in the .kube folder of your local machine and update the path of the kubecfg.crt and kubecfg.key on your local machine.
/etc/cfc/conf/kubecfg.crt --> C:\Users\<username>\.kube\kubecfg.crt
/etc/cfc/conf/kubecfg.key --> C:\Users\<username>\.kube\kubecfg.key

Now you should be able to interact with the cluster. Run 'kubectl get pods' and you will see the pods on the k8s cluster.

You can also define the filepath of kubeconfig by passing in --kubeconfig parameter.

For example, copy ~/.kube/config of the remote Kubernetes host to your local project's ~/myproject/.kube/config. In ~/myproject you can then list the pods of the remote Kubernetes server by running kubectl get pods --kubeconfig ./.kube/config.

Do notice that when copying the values from the remote Kubernetes server simple kubectl config view won't be sufficient, as it won't display the secrets of the config file. Instead, you have to do something like cat ~/.kube/config or use scp to get the full file contents.

See: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/share-configuration/