Create AWS EKS Kubernetes Cluster using eksctl Command

Creating Kubenetes cluster in AWS have multiple options like using AWS SDK, Terraform, Cloudformation and easy and quick for new learner using AWS Console. In this blog we going see another well know method of creating AWS EKS cluster using “eksctl” command by using as YAML configuration in default VPC. ( Same can be create by CLI command).

Let’s get start

Prerequisites:

Let install these binary one by one

1. AWS CLI
2. eksctl CLI
3. kubectl

Step 1. Install AWS CLI (Mac OS)

Download AWS CLI binary

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"

Install AWS CLI

sudo installer -pkg ./AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /

Verify the installation

which aws
aws --version

Step 2. Configure AWS CLI

Step 2.1. Login to AWS console as root user

Step 2.2. Create IAM user

username: kubedeveloper

No AWS console access, Only programmatic access

Provide Username

Permission as per User Type

Create Access and SecretAccessKey

Step 2.3 Select the IAM user “kubedeveloper”

Step 2.4 Navigate to Security Credentials

Step 2.5. Click Create access key

Step 2.6 Select Use case :

Command Line Interface (CLI) & check the Confirmation

Step 2.7. Set description tag — optional and Click create

Now we got AccessKey and SecretAccessKey,

Next, Let configure AWS CLI on Mac OS command line

Note: if multiple aws account configured, use — profile

$ aws configure

Validate AWS CLI Access

Run any aws command to list resources

Here eg: To list s3 buckets on my AWS account

$ aws s3 ls

Getting output, which denoted AWS access has configured correctly

bala@kubelancer Downloads % aws s3 ls
2022-12-13 21:36:02 firehose-backup-05bf6840
bala@kubelancer Downloads % 

Install eksctl on Mac OS

To download the latest release, run on Mac OS (arm64 architecture):

curl -sLO "https://github.com/eksctl-io/eksctl/releases/latest/download/eksctl_Darwin_arm64.tar.gz"
tar -xzvf eksctl_Darwin_arm64.tar.gz
sudo mv ./eksctl /usr/local/bin

Ref: https://www.weave.works/oss/eksctl/

Step 3: Creating an AWS EKS Kubernetes Cluster using eksctl tool

3.1. Create Cluster configuration yaml file

$ vi cluster-config.yaml

apiVersion: eksctl.io/v1alpha5
kind: ClusterConfig

metadata:
  name: kubelancer-cluster-1
  region: us-east-1

nodeGroups:
  - name: ng-1
    instanceType: t4g.medium
    desiredCapacity: 2
    volumeSize: 20
    ssh:
      allow: false

3.2 Let’s create eks cluster on aws using eksctl command

$ eksctl create cluster -f cluster-config.yaml

Cluster created successfully

Note: if multiple aws account configured, use — profile

Get the cluster name by using eksctl command

eksctl interact with AWS API and get the required details from AWS cloud

$ eksctl get cluster --profile kubedev

Use the following command to get update kube-config.

$ aws eks update-kubeconfig --name=kubelancer-cluster-1 --region=us-east-1

Verify the Cluster

kubectl get nodes

Cluster Node Status

Delete Cluster

$ kubectl get poddisruptionbudget -A
$ kubectl delete poddisruptionbudget coredns -n kube-system
$ eksctl delete cluster -f cluster-config.yaml --profile kubedev