<p>I am using </p>

<p><code>kubectl scale --replicas=0 -f deployment.yaml</code> </p>

<p>to stop all my running pods. Please let me know if there are better ways to bring down all running pods to Zero keeping configuration, deployments etc.. intact, so that I can scale up later as required.</p>

<p>You are doing the correct action; <em>traditionally</em> the <code>scale</code> verb is applied just to the resource name, as in <code>kubectl scale deploy my-awesome-deployment --replicas=0</code>, which removes the need to always point at the <em>specific file</em> that describes that deployment, but there's nothing wrong (that I know of) with using the file if that is more convenient for you.</p>
