This repository contains resources and configuration scripts for building a custom Amazon EKS AMI with HashiCorp Packer. This is the same configuration that Amazon EKS uses to create the official Amazon EKS-optimized AMI.
You must have Packer installed on your local system. For more information, see Installing Packer in the Packer documentation. You must also have AWS account credentials configured so that Packer can make calls to AWS API operations on your behalf. For more information, see Authentication in the Packer documentation.
Note
The default instance type to build this AMI is an m4.large and does not
qualify for the AWS free tier. You are charged for any instances created
when building this AMI.
A Makefile is provided to build the Amazon EKS Worker AMI, but it is just a small wrapper around invoking Packer directly. You can initiate the build process by running the following command in the root of this repository:
makeThe Makefile chooses a particular kubelet binary to use per kubernetes version which you can view here. To build an Amazon EKS Worker AMI for a particular Kubernetes version run the following command
make 1.21 ## Build a Amazon EKS Worker AMI for k8s 1.21To build an Amazon EKS Worker AMI with other versions of Kubernetes that are not listed above run the following AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) commands to obtain values for KUBERNETES_VERSION, KUBERNETES_BUILD_DATE, PLATFORM, ARCH from S3
#List of all avalable Kuberenets Versions:
aws s3 ls s3://amazon-eks
KUBERNETES_VERSION=1.17.9 # Chose a version and set the variable
#List of all builds for the specified Kubernetes Version:
aws s3 ls s3://amazon-eks/$KUBERNETES_VERSION/
KUBERNETES_BUILD_DATE=2020-08-04 # Chose a date and set the variable
#List of all platforms available for the selected Kubernetes Version and build date
aws s3 ls s3://amazon-eks/$KUBERNETES_VERSION/2020-08-04/bin/
PLATFORM=linux # Chose a platform and set the variable
#List of all architectures for the selected Kubernetes Version, build date and platform
aws s3 ls s3://amazon-eks/$KUBERNETES_VERSION/2020-08-04/bin/linux/
ARCH=amd64 #Chose an architecture and set the variableRun the following command to build an Amazon EKS Worker AMI based on the chosen parameters in the previous step
make k8s \
kubernetes_version=$KUBERNETES_VERSION \
kubernetes_build_date=$KUBERNETES_BUILD_DATE \
arch=$ARCHBy default, binaries are downloaded from the Amazon EKS public Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket amazon-eks in us-west-2. You can instead choose to provide your own version of Kubernetes binaries to be used. To use your own binaries
- Copy the binaries to your own S3 bucket using the AWS CLI. Here is an example that uses Kubelet binary
aws s3 cp kubelet s3://my-custom-bucket/kubernetes_version/kubernetes_build_date/bin/linux/arch/kubeletNote: Replace my-custom-bucket, amazon-eks, kubernetes_version, kubernetes_build_date, and arch with your values.
Important: You must provide all the binaries listed in the default amazon-eks bucket for a specific kubernetes_version, kubernetes_build_date, and arch combination. These binaries must be accessible through AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) credentials configured in the Install and configure HashiCorp Packer section.
- Run the following command to start the build process to use your own Kubernetes binaries
make k8s \
binary_bucket_name=my-custom-bucket \
binary_bucket_region=eu-west-1 \
kubernetes_version=1.14.9 \
kubernetes_build_date=2020-01-22Note: Confirm that the binary_bucket_name, binary_bucket_region, kubernetes_version, and kubernetes_build_date parameters match the path to your binaries in Amazon S3.
The Makefile runs Packer with the eks-worker-al2.json build specification
template and the amazon-ebs
builder. An instance is launched and the Packer Shell
Provisioner runs the
install-worker.sh script on the instance to install software and perform other
necessary configuration tasks. Then, Packer creates an AMI from the instance
and terminates the instance after the AMI is created.
If you are just getting started with Amazon EKS, we recommend that you follow our Getting Started chapter in the Amazon EKS User Guide. If you already have a cluster, and you want to launch a node group with your new AMI, see Launching Amazon EKS Worker Nodes in the Amazon EKS User Guide.
The amazon-eks-nodegroup.yaml AWS CloudFormation
template in this repository is provided to launch a node group with the new AMI
ID that is returned when Packer finishes building. Note that there is important
Amazon EC2 user data in this CloudFormation template that bootstraps the worker
nodes when they are launched so that they can register with your Amazon EKS
cluster. Your nodes cannot register properly without this user data.
The CloudFormation template for EKS Nodes is published in the S3 bucket
amazon-eks under the path cloudformation. You can see a list of previous
versions by running aws s3 ls s3://amazon-eks/cloudformation/.
| CloudFormation Version | EKS AMI versions | amazon-vpc-cni-k8s |
|---|---|---|
| 2019-09-27 | amazon-eks-node-(1.14,1.13,1.12,1.11)-v20190927 | v1.5.4 |
| 2019-09-17 | amazon-eks-node-(1.14,1.13,1.12,1.11)-v20190906 | v1.5.3 |
| 2019-02-11 | amazon-eks-node-(1.12,1.11,1.10)-v20190327 | v1.3.2 (for p3dn.24xlarge instances) |
| 2019-02-11 | amazon-eks-node-(1.11,1.10)-v20190220 | v1.3.2 (for p3dn.24xlarge instances) |
| 2019-02-11 | amazon-eks-node-(1.11,1.10)-v20190211 | v1.3.2 (for p3dn.24xlarge instances) |
| 2018-12-10 | amazon-eks-node-(1.11,1.10)-v20181210 | v1.2.1 |
| 2018-11-07 | amazon-eks-node-v25+ | v1.2.1 (for t3 and r5 instances) |
| 2018-08-30 | amazon-eks-node-v23+ | v1.1.0 |
| 2018-08-21 | amazon-eks-node-v23+ | v1.1.0 |
For older versions of the EKS AMI (v20-v22), you can find the CloudFormation
templates in the same bucket under the path s3://amazon-eks/1.10.3/2018-06-05/.
By default, the amazon-eks-ami uses a source_ami_filter that selects the latest hvm AL2 AMI for the given architecture as the base AMI. For more information on what kernel versions are running on published Amazon EKS optimized Linux AMIs, see the public documentation.
When building an AMI, you can set the kernel_version to 4.14 or 5.4 to customize the kernel version. The upgrade_kernel.sh script contains the logic for updating and upgrading the kernel. For Kubernetes versions 1.18 and below, it uses the 4.14 kernel if not set, and it will install the latest patches. For Kubernetes version 1.19 and above, it uses the 5.4 kernel if not set.
For security issues or concerns, please do not open an issue or pull request on GitHub. Please report any suspected or confirmed security issues to AWS Security https://aws.amazon.com/security/vulnerability-reporting/
This sample code is made available under a modified MIT license. See the LICENSE file.