Connect to your EKS cluster

To connect to an Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) cluster from your local computer, follow these steps:

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following tools installed and configured:

• AWS CLI: Installation Guide
• kubectl: Installation Guide
• aws-iam-authenticator (Optional): This is included with AWS CLI v2; no separate installation is required.

Authenticate with AWS

Ensure your AWS CLI is configured with credentials and the correct region:

aws configure

Provide your:

• AWS Access Key ID
• AWS Secret Access Key
• Default region (e.g., us-west-2)

Update kubeconfig

Run the following AWS CLI command to update your kubeconfig with the EKS cluster details:

aws eks update-kubeconfig --region <region> --name <cluster-name>

Replace <region> with the region where your cluster is deployed (e.g., us-west-2) and <cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster.

This command updates or creates the ~/.kube/config file on your computer, allowing kubectl to interact with your cluster.

Verify the Connection

Test the connection by running:

kubectl get nodes

If the cluster is correctly configured and accessible, you’ll see a list of the cluster’s nodes.

Troubleshooting

• Ensure IAM Permissions: The AWS user or role you’re using must have eks:DescribeCluster permissions to retrieve cluster details.

• Check IAM Authentication: Ensure the IAM entity you’re using is associated with a role in the cluster’s aws-auth ConfigMap. For example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: aws-auth
  namespace: kube-system
data:
  mapRoles: |
    - rolearn: arn:aws:iam::<account-id>:role/<role-name>
      username: admin
      groups:
        - system:masters

Once these steps are complete, you should be able to interact with your EKS cluster from your computer using kubectl.