Windows contributors face multiple issues: symlink folders not portable, permission errors, and missing imports in tests

[PraveenMudalgeri]

Summary

Trying to contribute as a Windows developer to this repo turned up several significant issues:

1. Several folders (e.g., kubernetes/config, kubernetes/watch) are symlinks to base/ subdirectories in the repo. On Windows and when using ZIP downloads from GitHub, these appear as plain text files and break both pip install -e . and running tests, since setuptools expects actual directories.

2. At least one test file (watch_test.py under kubernetes/base/watch and duplicated under kubernetes/watch) is missing import json. This causes test failures with NameError: name 'json' is not defined.

3. Several tests (for example, test_oidc_with_refresh inside kube_config_test.py) fail on Windows with PermissionError when trying to create/write temp files.

Steps to Reproduce

• Clone or download the repo on Windows.
• Try pip install -e . or run python -m pytest.
• Observe errors related to config/watch packages not being directories, import errors in test files, and permission errors for temp files.

Proposed Fixes

• Replace symlinks (kubernetes/config, kubernetes/watch, etc.) with real directories or use another structure to support Windows and ZIP-based contributors.
• Ensure all test modules have necessary imports (e.g., import json).
• Refactor or skip the failing temp file tests on Windows, or improve documentation about required permissions.

Environment

• OS: Windows 10/11, Python 3.13
• (Include pip list or pip freeze if desired)

Thank you! I’m happy to give more details or to help test solutions.

[roycaihw]

/help

[k8s-ci-robot]

@roycaihw:
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[roycaihw]

The symlink comes from places like https://github.com/kubernetes-client/python/blob/master/kubernetes/config. I'm not familiar with Windows development. Need some Windows expert to input here.

[roycaihw]

Replace symlinks (kubernetes/config, kubernetes/watch, etc.) with real directories or use another structure to support Windows and ZIP-based contributors.

The way we are doing it at the moment is legacy, and I'm concerned that there can be users depending on the current structure. I'd like to see if we can find a less impactful fix for Windows specifically.

[roycaihw]

Ensure all test modules have necessary imports (e.g., import json).

SGTM. Would you like to send a fix?

Refactor or skip the failing temp file tests on Windows, or improve documentation about required permissions.

It would also be great if we can find the correct alternative for Windows on temp file testing.

[PraveenMudalgeri]

I would give a try for this issue.