Default Amazon EKS add-ons

There are 3 default add-ons that get contained in each EKS cluster:

  • kube-proxy
  • vpc-cni (aws-node)
  • coredns

The above add-ons use the self-managed type by default.

AWS recommends adding the Amazon EKS type of add-ons to our clusters instead of using the self-managed type of add-ons.

Once an EKS cluster is created, we can use eksctl to determine the current the Amazon EKS type of add-ons and their versions installed on the cluster.

eksctl get addon --cluster management --region us-west-2

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Create the Amazon EKS type of add-ons manually

View the names of add-ons available:

export EKS_VERSION=1.26
eksctl utils describe-addon-versions --kubernetes-version $EKS_VERSION | grep AddonName

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View the versions available for add-ons. Replace name-of-addon with the name of the add-on you'd like to view the versions for.

export EKS_VERSION=1.26
eksctl utils describe-addon-versions --kubernetes-version $EKS_VERSION --name name-of-addon | grep AddonVersion

The picture below is for kube-proxy: alt text

  • kube-proxy
eksctl create addon --cluster management --name kube-proxy
  • vpc-cni
eksctl create addon --cluster management --name vpc-cni
  • coredns
eksctl create addon --cluster management --name coredns
  • aws-ebs-csi-driver
eksctl create addon --cluster management --name aws-ebs-csi-driver
kubectl apply -f gp3-sc.yaml
kubectl annotate sc gp2 storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class-
kubectl annotate sc gp3 storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class=true

Create the Amazon EKS type of add-ons by config files

You can specify what addons you want in the config file, and run:

eksctl create addon -f add-ons.yaml
kubectl apply -f gp3-sc.yaml
kubectl annotate sc gp2 storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class-
kubectl annotate sc gp3 storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class=true

# To update add-ons, run:
eksctl update addon -f add-ons.yaml

CloudFormation stacks will create IAM Roles that are assumable by Kubernetes Service Accounts. These roles are known as IAM Role for Service Account (IRSA). alt text alt text

More Information

Below are related links for more information: