Note: The RESTARTS column should contain 0 initially (ideally - it could be any number)

kubectl set image POD/POD_NAME CONTAINER_NAME=IMAGE_NAME:TAG

kubectl set image pod/nginx nginx=nginx:1.7.1 kubectl describe po nginx # you will see an event 'Container will be killed and recreated' kubectl get po nginx -w # watch it

Note: some time after changing the image, you should see that the value in the RESTARTS column has been increased by 1, because the container has been restarted, as stated in the events shown at the bottom of the kubectl describe pod command:

Events: Type Reason Age From Message

---

[...] Normal Killing 100s kubelet, node3 Container pod1 definition changed, will be restarted Normal Pulling 100s kubelet, node3 Pulling image "nginx:1.7.1" Normal Pulled 41s kubelet, node3 Successfully pulled image "nginx:1.7.1" Normal Created 36s (x2 over 9m43s) kubelet, node3 Created container pod1 Normal Started 36s (x2 over 9m43s) kubelet, node3 Started container pod1

Note: you can check pod's image by running

kubectl get po nginx -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[].image}{"\n"}'