Cannot authenticate to kubectl using the CLI on Windows

Connecting your IBM® Cloud Private cluster to the kubectl command line by using the IBM Cloud Private command line fails on Windows™.

Symptoms

When you run the cloudctl login command and the following error is displayed:

Unable to rename file to bat extension: C:\Users\<your_account>`\.cloudctl\clusters\mycluster\kube-config

Where <your_account> is the name of your Windows account.

Causes

Windows is not correctly converting the kube-config file that the command downloads to a .bat file.

Resolving the problem

  1. Change the file name from C:\Users\<your_account>\.cloudctl\clusters\mycluster\kube-config to C:\Users\<your_account>\.bluemix\plugins\icp\clusters\mycluster\kube-config.bat.
  2. Run the C:\Users\<your_account>\.cloudctl\clusters\mycluster\kube-config.bat file. You can run kubectl commands against your cluster.