This repository includes a template example to configure AWS Proton as a vending machine for EKS clusters using Terraform. For more information about this use case please read this blog post. This tutorial is not intended to be used as-is for production. It provides an example of how to use Proton for this specific scenario. The template is only provided to describe "the art of possible".
To get started with this tutorial you need to have an AWS account with administrative privileges and a GitHub account.
Note: Terraform provisioning happens outside the context of Proton and for that we are providing a sample GitHub Actions workflow as part of the same repository. However, you could use any Terraform pipeline you want to accomplish the same result with a similar flow.
Login to the AWS console and select the AWS region where you want to exercise this tutorial.
Create a repository (in your GitHub account) off of this template: https://github.com/aws-samples/eks-blueprints-for-proton and keep the same name (you can also fork the repository if you prefer). Remember to enable GitHub Actions on your repository because it will be required later.
Set up an AWS CodeStar connection following these instructions. This will allow you to access your GitHub account (and your repos) from Proton.
Once you are done, go to the Proton console and switch to the Settings/Repositories page. Add the repository you created (or forked) above and point to the main branch. You should now have a repository listed that looks like this (your GitHub name will be different):
For Terraform to be able to deploy (or "vend") EKS clusters, it needs to assume a proper IAM role. In addition, since for our solution we will use Terraform open source, we also need an S3 bucket to save the Terraform state. To do this please follow the instructions at this page.
Retrieve the role ARN and the S3 bucket name from the output of the IaC above and update the env-config.json file in your GitHub repository. Make sure to update the region parameter to the region you are using.
Remember to commit and push these changes to your GitHub repository now
Create an IAM user that you will be using to represent the developer persona (i.e. the person that will request the cluster). Call it protondev and attach the AWS managed AWSProtonDeveloperAccess policy.
This user needs a bit more power in addition to the managed AWSProtonDeveloperAccess IAM policy: because, in Proton, a developer with the standard AWSProtonDeveloperAccess is not allowed to deploy an environment, you need to add the ability to CreateEnvironment, UpdateEnvironment, DeleteEnvironment as well as to PassRole (to the Proton service). In addition, to use the aws eks update-kubeconfig command to create the config file that kubectl will use, the protondev must be able to DescribeCluster. Lastly, for convenience if you want to use the Cloud Shell with the protondev user, that policy must be allowed explicitly.
The following is an inline policy for the protondev user to add these additional permissions required:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "iam:PassRole",
"Resource": "*",
"Condition": {
"StringEquals": {
"iam:PassedToService": "proton.amazonaws.com"
}
}
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"proton:CreateEnvironment",
"proton:UpdateEnvironment",
"proton:DeleteEnvironment",
"iam:ListRoles"
],
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "eks:DescribeCluster",
"Resource": "*"
},
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "cloudshell:*",
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}
Now that you configured the core requirements in your accounts, create the environment template that Proton will use to vend clusters.
To do so we will continue to use the administrative user or role we have used so far in the tutorial. Some customers may want this part to be done by Proton administrators (i.e. entities with the
AWSProtonFullAccessIAM policy associated or a variation of it).
Switch to the Templates/Environment templates page in the Proton console and click Create environment template. Leave all defaults except for the following fields: (1) in the Template bundle source select Sync templates from Git; (2) Pick the repository in your account; (3) set the Branch name to main; (4) in the Template details set eks-mng-karpenter-with-new-vpc as the Template name.
It is important that you set the name exactly to
eks-mng-karpenter-with-new-vpcbecause Proton will scan the repo for that exact folder name (and version structure).
Set a Template display name for convenience and an optional description; leave everything else as default and click Create environment template.
Within a few seconds, upon a refresh, you should see a template version 1.0 appear. It's in Draft state. Click Publish and it will move into Published state.
You should see something like this:
Now that a platform administrator has configured the template that represents the organization standard for an EKS cluster, logout from the console with the administrative principle and login back with the protondev user you created earlier.
Before moving forward double-check that GitHub Actions are enabled for your repository because the next steps will eventually trigger the workflows. To check, in your repository go to
Settings,ActionsthenGeneraland make sureAllow all actions and reusable workflowsis selected.
Navigate to the Environments page in the Proton console and click Create environment. Select the environment template you created above and click Configure. In the Provisioning section select Self-managed provisioning. In the Provisioning repository details select Existing repository, in the Repository name select the GitHub repo you created (or forked) above and main as the Branch name. Provide an Environment name, an optional Environment description of your choice and click Next.
Give your cluster a name, leave the vpc_cidr as is and add your AWS IAM user (protondev) to the input user. You should now see something like this:
The EKS Blueprints will enable the user you enter to assume an IAM role that has been defined as a Kubernetes cluster admin in the K8s RBAC (we'll play with this later). The list of add-ons has been provided as an example. Flag or unflag them at your discretion. Should you use this solution in production you may want to check in the EKS Blueprints all the add-ons supported and include what you need in your own Proton template. For example, you may want to expose the size of the cluster either in terms of nodes (min, max) or in t-shirt sizes (small, medium, large). This example template hard code the size of the cluster, but it's really all up to the platform team to decide what parameters to expose to developers.
This is where the magic happens. The input parameters you see here (which are obviously related to the EKS cluster you are about to provision) are part of the sample template provided in the repo but that you can fully customize based on your needs. Specifically the main.tf file is where the EKS Blueprints module is imported and where the core configuration is defined. The schema.yaml file is where all the inputs get defined. The outputs.tf file is where all the outputs that will be presented in the Proton console get defined. Note that in the template sample we created in the repo the only Kubernetes version you can pick is 1.20 because we pretend that this is the only version that the platform team at your org has vetted and is supporting internally.
Click Next and in the next summary form click Create. This will kick off your cluster creation.
This will trigger the following process:
- Proton will merge the Terraform template with your inputs and create a PR in the repository you specified (in our tutorial it's the same repository that hosts the template, but you probably want these to be two separate repositories in a production setup - just remember to add them both to the Proton
Repositoriespage you configured at the beginning) - The GitHub action example that ships with this repository will trigger to run a plan and check everything is in good shape
- The PR will be created (its merging can be a manual step performed by a platform administrator upon a code review or, because Proton creates enough guardrails for the PR to be legit, the repository can be configured to perform an auto-merge)
- Once the PR is merged the GH action provided as an example in the repository will kick off again and this time it will go till the
terraform applystage effectively deploying the cluster - When the
applyhas completed the action will notify Proton with theoutputwhich consists, among other things, of theeks awscommand to configure theconfigfile to pointkubectlto the cluster you just deployed.
Note: if you want to know more about how Terraform templating and Git provisioning works in Proton, please refer to these two blogs posts: AWS Proton Terraform Templates and AWS Proton Self-Managed Provisioning.
It will take roughly 15/20 minutes to deploy, and you can watch progress in the GitHub Actions workflow. When the workflow completes you should see something like this in your Proton console for the environment you have just deployed:
Congratulations. You have just witnessed Proton vending an EKS cluster.
You should still be logged in as protondev. You can now open a Cloud Shell and run the aws eks update-kubeconfig command as reported in the Proton Outputs section. This will configure kubectl in your shell to communicate with this cluster. If you have kubectl installed in your shell you can start interacting with the cluster (you can grab the kubectl binary from here):
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$ aws eks --region us-west-2 update-kubeconfig --name 6946-myekscluster --role-arn arn:aws:iam::336419811389:role/6946-aws001-preprod-dev-platform-team-Access
Added new context arn:aws:eks:us-west-2:336419811389:cluster/6946-myekscluster to /home/cloudshell-user/.kube/config
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$ kubectl get pods -A
NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
aws-for-fluent-bit aws-for-fluent-bit-42954 1/1 Running 0 103m
aws-for-fluent-bit aws-for-fluent-bit-9srpk 1/1 Running 0 103m
aws-for-fluent-bit aws-for-fluent-bit-rzj9m 1/1 Running 0 103m
cert-manager cert-manager-5dbb9d7955-tcrfp 1/1 Running 0 103m
cert-manager cert-manager-cainjector-7d55bf8f78-s54mm 1/1 Running 0 103m
cert-manager cert-manager-webhook-5c888754d5-rsw5f 1/1 Running 0 103m
karpenter karpenter-7b9cc6dc5b-wrdlz 2/2 Running 0 104m
kube-system aws-load-balancer-controller-7686bcf8b-bp7rv 1/1 Running 0 104m
kube-system aws-load-balancer-controller-7686bcf8b-m47m6 1/1 Running 0 104m
kube-system aws-node-52hmg 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system aws-node-bxqt5 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system aws-node-zmhrr 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system coredns-86d9946576-5g46r 1/1 Running 0 106m
kube-system coredns-86d9946576-vrldf 1/1 Running 0 106m
kube-system kube-proxy-f5ph4 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system kube-proxy-nzwbj 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system kube-proxy-qz55d 1/1 Running 0 105m
kube-system metrics-server-679944f8f6-264jl 1/1 Running 0 104m
vpa vpa-recommender-fb896949d-xnknm 1/1 Running 0 104m
vpa vpa-updater-7447f7657-9zkwc 1/1 Running 0 104m
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$ kubectl get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
ip-10-0-10-125.us-west-2.compute.internal Ready <none> 105m v1.20.11-eks-f17b81
ip-10-0-11-68.us-west-2.compute.internal Ready <none> 105m v1.20.11-eks-f17b81
ip-10-0-12-132.us-west-2.compute.internal Ready <none> 105m v1.20.11-eks-f17b81
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$ kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://FEEEFE9EC8CE64A2F90269827F8CB045.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com
CoreDNS is running at https://FEEEFE9EC8CE64A2F90269827F8CB045.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$ kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"23", GitVersion:"v1.23.5", GitCommit:"c285e781331a3785a7f436042c65c5641ce8a9e9", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2022-03-16T15:58:47Z", GoVersion:"go1.17.8", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"20+", GitVersion:"v1.20.15-eks-14c7a48", GitCommit:"eb09fc479c1b2bfcc35c47416efb36f1b9052d58", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2022-04-01T03:14:50Z", GoVersion:"go1.15.15", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
WARNING: version difference between client (1.23) and server (1.21) exceeds the supportedhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_use_switch-role-console.html minor version skew of +/-1
[cloudshell-user@ip-10-0-70-52 ~]$
From now on it's just standard Kubernetes.
You can also access the cluster via the AWS console. To do so you need to assume the role that has been added to the K8s RBAC. The protondev user is allowed to assume that role (this is what we have done with the aws eks update-kubeconfig command above). In our example this role is arn:aws:iam::336419811389:role/6946-aws001-preprod-dev-platform-team-Access (available as part of the command string in the Proton environment output). In the console, while logged as protondev you can switch to this role, move to the EKS console and navigate in the UI to discover all cluster objects:
Fun fact: the developer may see an
Update nowbutton in the console if there is a new Kubernetes cluster version available in EKS. While thearn:aws:iam::336419811389:role/6946-aws001-preprod-dev-platform-team-Accessrole is a Kubernetes administrator (in other words you can do pretty much all you want with kubectl), it has very limited IAM permissions when it comes to EKS (mostly limited to list and describe operations). This is why you can use the console to list, describe the cluster and discover all objects in it. Simply put, clicking on theUpdate nowbutton will just generate a message saying the operation cannot be performed.
How do you maintain this cluster then? We are glad you asked.
Remember this solution allows a central platform team to maintain a set of standards (one of which is the Kubernetes cluster version). As a platform administrator you may get to the point where you bless another Kubernetes version. In this case let's simulate that you have verified K8s version 1.21 adheres to your organization standards, and you want to make it available to you developers. The only thing you need to do is to update the schema.yaml file in your own repository (the repository you are using with Proton) to include the new version. Specifically you need to configure the kubernetes_version variable to accept both 1.20 and 1.21 and change the default to 1.21 as follows:
kubernetes_version:
type: string
description: Kubernetes Version
enum: ["1.20", "1.21"]
default: "1.21"
When you push this commit to your repository in GitHub, Proton will detect the change in the template. If you login with the administrative user you will see in the details of your Environment template that there is a new version in the Draft stage. You can click Publish, and it will become the new default minor version for that template.
This means that every cluster a developer will deploy with this template can be deployed with either versions (because 1.20 and 1.21 are both valid options). However, it is also possible to upgrade an existing 1.20 cluster to the new 1.21 version.
Your environment template should now look like this:
Note the new
Template version(1.1) and also note that there is an environment deployed that references this template at version1.0.
Now that a Proton administrator have updated the template, login back as the protondev user and open your Proton environment that represents the cluster you deployed above. You will notice that there is a message, in the Template version field, that says that there is a new template available. You can now update your environment to apply the new template and change the inputs.
Note: in this example we are updating both the template and an input parameter in that template. In general these can be separate processes. That is, you can update the template functionalities without necessarily exposing the user new or different parameters, or you can update input parameters without having to update a template. Refer to this Proton documentation page for more details about environments updates. Also remember that this EKS Blueprint template is only provided as part of a demonstration tutorial. If you are deep into Terraform and EKS/Kubernetes you can build a template that better fits your own needs. Refer to the EKS Blueprints repo for all the options available.
In our scenario, you have to go to the Proton environment and click Update minor:
At the next screen leave everything unchanged and click Edit to get access and update your cluster parameters. Here you can set the cluster version to 1.21:
Click Next and then Update.
This will trigger a workflow identical to the one we triggered with the deployment. Terraform, in this case, will apply the configuration to an existing cluster and the logic inside the EKS Blueprints module will know how to upgrade an EKS cluster. At the end of this process the GitHub action will notify Proton that the upgrade has completed.
Please note that Kubernetes versions are a moving target. The examples in this README file refer to setting up version 1.20 and upgrading it to 1.21. Over time, your setup will require to use new EKS Blueprints module versions (as defined in the main.tf file and different Kubernetes cluster versions as defined in the schema.yaml file.
Note: Kubernetes cluster upgrades are often heavy operations that have ramifications into add-on components and modules you use. In some cases they also have ramifications into how applications running on Kubernetes are defined. While EKS Blueprints help in that regard, it's important that you test these upgrades throughout. Also consider that there are a number of strategies you can use to surface Kubernetes versions in your Proton templates. In our quick example we have shown how to have multiple Kubernetes versions in the same template but another tactic could be to separate Kubernetes versions in dedicated Proton major template versions (in a 1:1 mapping between the Kubernetes version and the Proton template major version). Each approach has advantages and disadvantages that you need to factor in. You can read more about Proton templates versions here.
When you are done with the test you may want to delete the cluster to avoid incurring into undesired infrastructure costs. From the Proton console go into the environment you have deployed and select Delete. This will trigger the same workflow of the deployment and the update. Proton will open a PR against the repository which, when merged, will call the Terraform destroy workflows defined in GitHub Actions.