All Areas Access

Now, you need to authenticate with your cluster with AWS IAM authenticator:

$ curl -o aws-iam-authenticator https://amazon-eks.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/1.19.6/2021-01-05/bin/linux/amd64/aws-iam-authenticator
$ mv aws-iam-authenticator /usr/local/bin
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/aws-iam-authenticator

Now run the command to save the local cluster configuration, replacing the cluster name after --name:

$ aws eks update-kubeconfig --name <chrisbinnie-eks-cluster> --region eu-west-1
Updated context arn:aws:eks:eu-west-1:XXXX:cluster/chrisbinnie-eks-cluster in /root/.kube/config

Now you can authenticate with the cluster. Download kubectl to speak to the API server in Kubernetes (if you don't already have it) and then save it to your path:

$ curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
$ mv kubectl /usr/local/bin
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kubectl

This command allows you to connect to the cluster with a local Kubernetes config file. Now for the moment of truth: Use kubectl to connect to the cluster to see what pods are running across all namespaces. Listing 3 shows a fully functional Kubernetes cluster, and in Figure 3 you can see the worker nodes showing up in AWS EC2. Finally, the EC2 section of the AWS Management Console (Figure 4; bottom-left, under Elastic IPs ) displays the Elastic IP address of the cluster.

$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE     NAME                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   aws-node-96zqh             1/1     Running   0          19m
kube-system   aws-node-dzshl             1/1     Running   0          20m
kube-system   coredns-6d97dc4b59-hrpjp   1/1     Running   0          25m
kube-system   coredns-6d97dc4b59-mdd8x   1/1     Running   0          25m
kube-system   kube-proxy-bkjbw           1/1     Running   0          20m
kube-system   kube-proxy-ctc6l           1/1     Running   0          19m

Figure 3: The worker nodes are seen in the EC2 section of the AWS Management Console.

Figure 4: The Elastic IP address associated with the cluster is revealed in the AWS Console.

Destruction

To destroy your cluster, you first need to wait for the Node group to drain its worker nodes by deleting the Node group in the AWS Console (see the "Node groups" box); then, you can also click the Delete Cluster button; finally, make sure you delete the Elastic IP address afterward. Be warned that the deletion of both of these components takes a little while, so patience is required. (See the "Word to the Wise" box.)

The End Is Nigh

As you can see, the process of standing up a Kubernetes cluster within AWS EKS is slick and easily automated. If you can afford to pay some fees for a few days, the process covered here can be repeated, and destroying a cluster each time is an affordable way of testing your applications in a reliable, production-like environment.

A reminder that once you have mastered the process, it is quite possible to autoscale your cluster to exceptionally busy production workloads, thanks to the flexibility made possible by the Amazon cloud. If you work on the programmatic deletion of clusters, you can start and stop them in multiple AWS regions to your heart's content.