How to fix kubectl Unable to connect to the server: dial tcp ...:443: i/o timeout

Problem:

You want to create or edit a Kubernetes service but when running e.g.

kubectl create -f my-service.yml

you see an error message similar to this:

Unable to connect to the server: dial tcp 35.198.129.60:443: i/o timeout

Solution

There are three common reasons for this issue:

1. Your Kubernetes cluster is not running. Verify that your cluster has been started, e.g. by pinging the IP address.
2. There are networking issues that prevent you from accessing the cluster. Verify that you can ping the IP and try to track down whether there is a firewall in place preventing the access
3. You have configured a cluster that does not exist any more.

In case of Google Cloud Kubernetes, case (3) can easily be fixed by configuring Kubernetes to use your current cluster:

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [cluster name] --zone [zone]

This will automatically update the default cluster for kubectl.

In case you don’t know the correct cluster name and zone, use

gcloud container clusters list