Remove kubernetes namespace stuck in Terminating

Quick Post:

Cause: This is because of a stuck resource in kubernetes.

Solution: One way to get around this is to remove the finalizer spec to allow kubernetes in to clean-up the namespace.

Steps:

• Dump the namespace spec in json format

kubectl get ns <namespace to remove> -o json > namespace.json

• Edit the namespace.json and remove the finalizer portion in the spec. it should look like below

From:

to:

• Manually patch the namespace using the following command

kubectl replace --raw "/api/v1/namespaces/<NAMESPACE NAME>/finalize" -f namespace.json

… and that’s it. Hope that helps 🙂