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---
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assignees:
- davidopp
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title: User Guide
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---
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The Kubernetes **Guides** can help you work with various aspects of the Kubernetes system.
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* The Kubernetes [User Guide ](#user-guide-internal ) can help you run programs and services on an existing Kubernetes cluster.
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* The [Cluster Admin Guide ](/docs/admin/ ) can help you set up and administrate your own Kubernetes cluster.
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* The [Developer Guide ](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/tree/{{page.githubbranch}}/docs/devel ) can help you either write code to directly access the Kubernetes API, or to contribute directly to the Kubernetes project.
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## <a name="user-guide-internal"></a>Kubernetes User Guide
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The following topics in the Kubernetes User Guide can help you run applications and services on a Kubernetes cluster:
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1. [Quick start: launch and expose an application ](/docs/user-guide/quick-start/ )
1. [Configuring and launching containers: configuring common container parameters ](/docs/user-guide/configuring-containers/ )
1. [Deploying continuously running applications ](/docs/user-guide/deploying-applications/ )
1. [Connecting applications: exposing applications to clients and users ](/docs/user-guide/connecting-applications/ )
1. [Working with containers in production ](/docs/user-guide/production-pods/ )
1. [Managing deployments ](/docs/user-guide/managing-deployments/ )
1. [Application introspection and debugging ](/docs/user-guide/introspection-and-debugging/ )
1. [Using the Kubernetes web user interface ](/docs/user-guide/ui/ )
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1. [Logging ](/docs/user-guide/logging/overview/ )
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1. [Monitoring ](/docs/user-guide/monitoring/ )
1. [Getting into containers via `exec` ](/docs/user-guide/getting-into-containers/ )
1. [Connecting to containers via proxies ](/docs/user-guide/connecting-to-applications-proxy/ )
1. [Connecting to containers via port forwarding ](/docs/user-guide/connecting-to-applications-port-forward/ )
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Before running examples in the user guides, please ensure you have completed the [prerequisites ](/docs/user-guide/prereqs/ ).
## Kubernetes Concepts
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[**Cluster** ](/docs/admin/ )
: A cluster is a set of physical or virtual machines and other infrastructure resources used by Kubernetes to run your applications.
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[**Node** ](/docs/admin/node/ )
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: A node is a physical or virtual machine running Kubernetes, onto which pods can be scheduled.
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[**Pod** ](/docs/user-guide/pods/ )
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: A pod is a co-located group of containers and volumes.
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[**Label** ](/docs/user-guide/labels/ )
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: A label is a key/value pair that is attached to a resource, such as a pod, to convey a user-defined identifying attribute. Labels can be used to organize and to select subsets of resources.
[**Selector** ](/docs/user-guide/labels/#label-selectors )
: A selector is an expression that matches labels in order to identify related resources, such as which pods are targeted by a load-balanced service.
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[**Replication Controller** ](/docs/user-guide/replication-controller/ )
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: A replication controller ensures that a specified number of pod replicas are running at any one time. It both allows for easy scaling of replicated systems and handles re-creation of a pod when the machine it is on reboots or otherwise fails.
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[**Service** ](/docs/user-guide/services/ )
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: A service defines a set of pods and a means by which to access them, such as single stable IP address and corresponding DNS name.
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[**Volume** ](/docs/user-guide/volumes/ )
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: A volume is a directory, possibly with some data in it, which is accessible to a Container as part of its filesystem. Kubernetes volumes build upon [Docker Volumes ](https://docs.docker.com/userguide/dockervolumes/ ), adding provisioning of the volume directory and/or device.
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[**Secret** ](/docs/user-guide/secrets/ )
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: A secret stores sensitive data, such as authentication tokens, which can be made available to containers upon request.
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[**Name** ](/docs/user-guide/identifiers/ )
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: A user- or client-provided name for a resource.
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[**Namespace** ](/docs/user-guide/namespaces/ )
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: A namespace is like a prefix to the name of a resource. Namespaces help different projects, teams, or customers to share a cluster, such as by preventing name collisions between unrelated teams.
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[**Annotation** ](/docs/user-guide/annotations/ )
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: A key/value pair that can hold larger (compared to a label), and possibly not human-readable, data, intended to store non-identifying auxiliary data, especially data manipulated by tools and system extensions. Efficient filtering by annotation values is not supported.
## Further reading
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API resources
* [Working with resources ](/docs/user-guide/working-with-resources/ )
Pods and containers
* [Pod lifecycle and restart policies ](/docs/user-guide/pod-states/ )
* [Lifecycle hooks ](/docs/user-guide/container-environment/ )
* [Compute resources, such as cpu and memory ](/docs/user-guide/compute-resources/ )
* [Specifying commands and requesting capabilities ](/docs/user-guide/containers/ )
* [Downward API: accessing system configuration from a pod ](/docs/user-guide/downward-api/ )
* [Images and registries ](/docs/user-guide/images/ )
* [Migrating from docker-cli to kubectl ](/docs/user-guide/docker-cli-to-kubectl/ )
* [Configuration Best Practices and Tips ](/docs/user-guide/config-best-practices/ )
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* [Assign pods to selected nodes ](/docs/user-guide/node-selection/ )
* [Perform a rolling update on a running group of pods ](/docs/user-guide/update-demo/ )
