Learn Terraform - Provision an EKS Cluster

This repo is a companion repo to the Provision an EKS Cluster learn guide, containing Terraform configuration files to provision an EKS cluster on AWS.

Install the Terraform CLI and AWS CLI. Configure the AWS CLI to use your credentials.

$ aws configure
AWS Access Key ID [None]: <YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID>
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: <YOUR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY>
Default region name [None]: <YOUR_AWS_REGION>
Default output format [None]: json

This enables Terraform access to the configuration file and performs operations on your behalf with these security credentials.

After you've done this, initalize your Terraform workspace, which will download the provider and initialize it with the values provided in the terraform.tfvars file.

$ terraform init
Initializing modules...
Downloading terraform-aws-modules/eks/aws 9.0.0 for eks...
- eks in .terraform/modules/eks/terraform-aws-modules-terraform-aws-eks-908c656
- eks.node_groups in .terraform/modules/eks/terraform-aws-modules-terraform-aws-eks-908c656/modules/node_groups
Downloading terraform-aws-modules/vpc/aws 2.6.0 for vpc...
- vpc in .terraform/modules/vpc/terraform-aws-modules-terraform-aws-vpc-4b28d3d

Initializing the backend...

Initializing provider plugins...
- Checking for available provider plugins...
- Downloading plugin for provider "template" (hashicorp/template) 2.1.2...
- Downloading plugin for provider "kubernetes" (hashicorp/kubernetes) 1.10.0...
- Downloading plugin for provider "aws" (hashicorp/aws) 2.52.0...
- Downloading plugin for provider "random" (hashicorp/random) 2.2.1...
- Downloading plugin for provider "local" (hashicorp/local) 1.4.0...
- Downloading plugin for provider "null" (hashicorp/null) 2.1.2...

Terraform has been successfully initialized!

Then, provision your EKS cluster by running terraform apply. This will take approximately 10 minutes.

$ terraform apply

# Output truncated...

Plan: 51 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

Do you want to perform these actions?
  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

# Output truncated...

Apply complete! Resources: 51 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

Outputs:

cluster_endpoint = https://A1ADBDD0AE833267869C6ED0476D6B41.gr7.us-east-2.eks.amazonaws.com
cluster_security_group_id = sg-084ecbab456328732
kubectl_config = apiVersion: v1
preferences: {}
kind: Config

clusters:
- cluster:
    server: https://A1ADBDD0AE833267869C6ED0476D6B41.gr7.us-east-2.eks.amazonaws.com
    certificate-authority-data: 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
  name: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF

contexts:
- context:
    cluster: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF
    user: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF
  name: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF

current-context: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF

users:
- name: eks_training-eks-TNajBRIF
  user:
    exec:
      apiVersion: client.authentication.k8s.io/v1alpha1
      command: aws-iam-authenticator
      args:
        - "token"
        - "-i"
        - "training-eks-TNajBRIF"



region = eu-west-2

Configure kubectl

To configure kubetcl, you need both kubectl and AWS IAM Authenticator. You only need the AWS IAM Authenticator if your installed AWS CLI is older than release 1.16.156. Otherwise you can simply run the below commnand to get the access credentials for your cluster and automatically configure kubectl.

$ aws eks --region $(terraform output region) update-kubeconfig --name $(terraform output cluster_name)

The Kubernetes cluster name and region correspond to the output variables showed after the successful Terraform run.

You can view these outputs again by running:

$ terraform output

Deploy and access Kubernetes Dashboard

To verify that your cluster is configured correctly and running, you will install a Kubernetes dashboard and navigate to it in your local browser.

Deploy Kubernetes Metrics Server

The Kubernetes Metrics Server, used to gether metrics such as cluster CPU and memory usage over time, is not deployed by default in EKS clusters.

Download and unzip the metrics server by running the following command.

$ wget -O v0.3.6.tar.gz https://codeload.github.com/kubernetes-sigs/metrics-server/tar.gz/v0.3.6 && tar -xzf v0.3.6.tar.gz

Deploy the metrics server to the cluster by running the following command.

$ kubectl apply -f metrics-server-0.3.6/deploy/1.8+/

Verify that the metrics server has been deployed. If successful, you should see something like this.

$ kubectl get deployment metrics-server -n kube-system
NAME             READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
metrics-server   1/1     1            1           4s

Deploy Kubernetes Dashboard

The following command will schedule the resources necessary for the dashboard.

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.0.0-beta8/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml

namespace/kubernetes-dashboard created
serviceaccount/kubernetes-dashboard created
service/kubernetes-dashboard created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-certs created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-csrf created
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-key-holder created
configmap/kubernetes-dashboard-settings created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard created
service/dashboard-metrics-scraper created
deployment.apps/dashboard-metrics-scraper created

Now, create a proxy server that will allow you to navigate to the dashboard from the browser on your local machine. This will continue running until you stop the process by pressing CTRL + C.

$ kubectl proxy

You should be able to access the Kubernetes dashboard here.

http://127.0.0.1:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/

Authenticate the dashboard

To use the Kubernetes dashboard, you need to provide an authorization token. Authenticating using kubeconfig is not an option. You can read more about it in the Kubernetes documentation.

Generate the token in another terminal (do not close the kubectl proxy process).

$ kubectl -n kube-system describe secret $(kubectl -n kube-system get secret | grep service-controller-token | awk '{print $1}')

Name:         service-controller-token-46qlm
Namespace:    kube-system
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  kubernetes.io/service-account.name: service-controller
              kubernetes.io/service-account.uid: dd1948f3-6234-11ea-bb3f-0a063115cf22

Type:  kubernetes.io/service-account-token

Data
====
ca.crt:     1025 bytes
namespace:  11 bytes
token:      eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6I...

Select "Token" on the Dashboard UI then copy and paste the entire token you receive into the dashboard authentication screen to sign in. You are now signed in to the dashboard for your Kubernetes cluster.