Managing Kubernetes clusters on AWS has always been challenging, thanks to eksctl. This powerful command-line tool simplifies the creation, management, and maintenance of Kubernetes clusters on AWS. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to get started with eksctl, from necessary preparations to launching your first cluster.

Cluster Creation with Eksctl

Eksctl is an open-source CLI tool Weaveworks developed to create and manage Kubernetes clusters on Amazon EKS. With eksctl, you can make a fully operational EKS cluster with a single command.

Necessary Preparations

Before diving into cluster creation, ensure you have the following prerequisites in place:

  1. AWS CLI: Install and configure the AWS CLI with appropriate access permissions.
  2. kubectl: Install kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line tool.
  3. eksctl: Install eksctl by following the installation instructions.

# Install AWS CLI

pip install awscli

aws configure

# Install kubectl

curl -LO “https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl”

chmod +x ./kubectl

sudo mv ./kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl

# Install eksctl

curl –silent –location “https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases/download/0.61.0/eksctl_$(uname -s)_amd64.tar.gz” | tar xz -C /tmp

sudo mv /tmp/eksctl /usr/local/bin

Sample Eksctl YAML for Cluster Creation with AWS Managed Node Groups

To create a cluster with eksctl, you can define your cluster configuration in a YAML file. Below is a sample YAML configuration for creating a cluster with AWS-managed node groups:

apiVersion: eksctl.io/v1alpha5

kind: ClusterConfig

metadata:

  name: my-cluster

  region: us-west-2

nodeGroups:

  – name: managed-ng

    instanceType: t3.medium

    desiredCapacity: 3

    ssh:

      allow: true

      publicKeyName: my-key

Steps for Successful Node Group Registration

  1. Create the Cluster: Use eksctl to create the cluster with the defined YAML configuration.
    eksctl create cluster -f cluster-config.yaml
  1. Verify Node Group Registration: After the cluster creation, verify that the node groups are registered and ready.

    kubectl get nodes
  1. Update Kubeconfig: Ensure your kubeconfig is updated to interact with your new cluster.

    aws eks update-kubeconfig –name my-cluster –region us-west-2

Launching and Creating Your Cluster

With the configurations set and node groups ready, launching your cluster is straightforward:

  1. Run the Eksctl Command: Execute the eksctl command to initiate the cluster creation.

    eksctl create cluster –name my-cluster –region us-west-2 –nodegroup-name my-nodegroup –node-type t3.medium –nodes 3
  1. Monitor the Creation Process: The creation process may take several minutes. Eksctl will handle all the heavy lifting, including creating the VPC, subnets, security groups, and other necessary resources.
  2. Confirm Cluster Creation: Once complete, confirm the cluster creation by listing the nodes.

    kubectl get nodes
  1. Deploy Applications: Once your cluster runs, you can deploy applications using kubectl or any other Kubernetes deployment tool.

Conclusion

Setting up and managing Kubernetes clusters on AWS using eksctl simplifies the process, allowing you to focus on deploying and managing your applications rather than the underlying infrastructure. Following this guide, you can quickly start with eksctl and efficiently manage your Kubernetes clusters on AWS.

References

What is Amazon EKS?

Getting started with Amazon EKS – eksctl