User Manual — Back to Service Discovery Back to User Manual
The Copy Connection String command puts a ready-to-use connection string for a cluster on your clipboard. It is available from the right-click menu of a cluster in both the Connections view and the Service Discovery view.
For most clusters the command copies the string directly (optionally asking whether to include the password). For Kubernetes ClusterIP targets that are reached through a local port-forward tunnel, it opens a small grouped quick pick with a few extra, Kubernetes-specific options.
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Right-click a cluster and select Copy Connection String…. The connection string is copied to your clipboard and a short confirmation is shown.
When the cluster uses username/password authentication and a password is available, the command first asks whether to include it:
This prompt appears for saved connections and for Kubernetes-discovered targets, which routinely carry a real password.
When you copy the connection string for a Kubernetes ClusterIP target, the command shows a grouped quick pick instead of copying immediately. This applies both to the discovered target in the Service Discovery view and to the corresponding saved connection in the Connections view.
A ClusterIP service is not reachable from outside the cluster. To connect, the extension opens a local port-forward tunnel and the connection string points at 127.0.0.1:<localPort>. That string therefore only works on your machine, and only while the tunnel is active. It is not portable: pasting it into another machine, or into a teammate’s environment, will not connect.
For background on how the tunnel is established and reused, see Endpoint resolution and port forwarding.
The quick pick is organized into groups:
Connection string
Kubernetes
kubectl … port-forward command that reproduces the same machine-local tunnel, so a teammate can establish it on their own machine.After copying a connection string for a port-forwarded target, the extension reminds you that the string uses port-forwarding and only works on this machine while the tunnel is active.
Because the 127.0.0.1 connection string is machine-local, do not send it to a teammate directly. Instead, share the kubectl port-forward command from the quick pick (together with the password-free connection string if needed). Your teammate runs the command against the same cluster to open their own tunnel, then connects through their local 127.0.0.1:<localPort>.