AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) simplifies the management and operation of Kubernetes clusters on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. With EKS, you can leverage the power of container orchestration while benefiting from the scalability, availability, and security features offered by AWS. In this blog post, we will walk you through the step-by-step process of creating an EKS cluster, allowing you to harness the full potential of Kubernetes on AWS.
Prerequisites and Setup
Prerequisites and Setup Before creating a K8s cluster, ensure you have the necessary prerequisites in place. These include an AWS account, AWS CLI installed and configured, and kubectl installed. Additionally, make sure you have the appropriate IAM permissions to create EKS clusters.
Create an Amazon VPC To provide networking capabilities for your EKS cluster, you need to create an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). The VPC acts as an isolated virtual network where your cluster will reside. Use the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI to create a VPC, ensuring it meets your specific requirements, such as IP address range and subnets.
Set up the IAM Role and Policies EKS requires an IAM role to manage the cluster resources and interact with other AWS services. Create an IAM role with the necessary policies to grant permissions for EKS cluster creation and management. The role should include policies for EKS, EC2, and any other AWS services your applications will interact with. Attach the role to your EC2 instances that will serve as worker nodes in your cluster.
Install and Configure eksctl
eksctl is a command-line tool that simplifies the creation and management of K8s clusters. Install eksctl on your local machine by using this link: https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/blob/main/README.md#installation. Before running eksctl, you will need to run aws configure. This involves providing your AWS credentials, region, and other relevant information. It will then create two files named ~/.aws/config and ~/.aws/credentials which are required for eksctl and any operations using the aws CLI.
Create the EKS Cluster
With eksctl installed, you can now create your cluster. Use the eksctl create cluster command, specifying the desired cluster name, region, VPC, and worker node configuration. You can customize various aspects of your cluster, such as the Kubernetes version, instance types, and autoscaling options. The cluster creation process may take up to 10 minutes as EKS provisions the necessary resources and sets up the control plane.
eksctl will handle the cluster creation process, making it straightforward and efficient. The following simple example will create an EKS cluster, and update the ~/.kube/config file which is required for kubectl. This is the most simplistic command for creating clusters as eksctl has many different options depending on what you are needing to setup or destroy a cluster.
eksctl create cluster --name app1_dev --region us-east-1 --fargate
Managing EKS Clusters
eksctl automatically configures ~/.kube/config which contains the necessary credentials and cluster information. Once the cluster creation is complete, verify its status using kubectl. Run kubectl get nodes to ensure that your worker nodes are registered and ready. You should see the list of worker nodes and their status. This confirms that your EKS cluster is up and running.
kubectl get nodes NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION fargate-ip-192-239-71-111.us-west-1.compute.internal Ready <none> 1d v1.25.8-eks-f4dc2c0 fargate-ip-192-390-21-91.us-west-1.compute.internal Ready <none> 1d v1.25.8-eks-f4dc2c0
Deploy and Manage Applications
With your EKS cluster ready, you can start deploying and managing applications on Kubernetes. Utilize kubectl to create deployments, services, and other K8s resources as you would any other K8s cluster. Use Helm Charts to simplify YAML configs or use YAML files if using a simple deployment. Leverage the scalability, load balancing, and self-healing capabilities of Kubernetes to ensure the optimal performance and availability of your applications.
Creating an EKS cluster empowers you to harness the power of Kubernetes on the AWS platform while benefiting from the managed services and robust infrastructure provided by AWS. By following this step-by-step guide, you can seamlessly create or destroy EKS clusters within minutes.
Please checkout other articles on orchestration here.