Nodegroups - Eksctl User Guide
Topics:

Nodegroups

This chapter includes information about how you create and configure Nodegroups with Eksctl. Nodegroups are groups of EC2 instances attached to an EKS cluster.

Topics:

  • Spot instances

    • Create and manage EKS clusters with Spot instances using managed node groups

    • Configure Spot instances for unmanaged node groups using the MixedInstancesPolicy

    • Distinguish Spot and On-Demand instances using the node-lifecycle Kubernetes label

  • Auto Scaling

    • Enable automatic scaling of Kubernetes cluster nodes by creating a cluster or nodegroup with IAM role that allows the use of the cluster autoscaler

    • Configure nodegroup definitions to include necessary tags and annotations for the cluster autoscaler to scale the nodegroup

    • Create separate nodegroups for each availability zone if workloads have zone-specific requirements, such as zone-specific storage or affinity rules

  • EKS managed nodegroups

    • Provision and manage EC2 instances (nodes) for Amazon EKS Kubernetes clusters

    • Easily apply bug fixes, security patches, and update nodes to the latest Kubernetes versions

  • EKS Hybrid Nodes

    • Enable running on-premises and edge applications on customer-managed infrastructure with the same AWS EKS clusters, features, and tools used in the AWS Cloud

    • Configure networking to connect on-premises networks to an AWS VPC, using options like AWS Site-to-Site VPN or AWS Direct Connect

    • Set up credentials for remote nodes to authenticate with the EKS cluster, using either AWS Systems Manager (SSM) or AWS IAM Roles Anywhere

  • Support for Node Repair Config in EKS Managed Nodegroups

    • Enabling Node Repair for EKS Managed Nodegroups to automatically monitor and replace or reboot unhealthy worker nodes

  • ARM Support

    • Create an EKS cluster with ARM-based Graviton instances for improved performance and cost-efficiency

  • Taints

    • Apply taints to specific node groups in a Kubernetes cluster

    • Control scheduling and eviction of pods based on taint keys, values, and effects

  • Launch Template support for Managed Nodegroups

    • Launching managed node groups using a provided EC2 Launch Template

    • Upgrading a managed node group to use a different version of a Launch Template

    • Understanding limitations and considerations when using custom AMIs and Launch Templates with managed node groups

  • Work with node groups

    • Enable SSH access to EC2 instances in the node group

    • Scale the number of nodes in a node group up or down

  • Custom subnets

    • Extend an existing VPC with a new subnet and add a Nodegroup to that subnet

  • Node bootstrapping

    • Understand the new node initialization process (nodeadm) introduced in AmazonLinux2023

    • Learn about the default NodeConfig settings applied by eksctl for self-managed and EKS-managed nodes

    • Customize the node bootstrapping process by providing an overrideBootstrapCommand with a custom NodeConfig

  • Unmanaged nodegroups

    • Create or update unmanaged node groups in an EKS cluster

    • Update default Kubernetes add-ons like kube-proxy, aws-node, and CoreDNS

  • GPU Support

    • Eksctl supports selecting GPU instance types for nodegroups, enabling the use of GPU-accelerated workloads on EKS clusters.

    • Eksctl automatically installs the NVIDIA Kubernetes device plugin when a GPU-enabled instance type is selected, facilitating the use of GPU resources in the cluster.

    • Users can disable automatic plugin installation and manually install a specific version of the NVIDIA Kubernetes device plugin using the provided commands.

  • Instance Selector

    • Automatically generate a list of suitable EC2 instance types based on resource criteria like vCPUs, memory, GPUs, and CPU architecture

    • Create clusters and node groups with the instance types matched by the specified instance selector criteria

    • Perform a dry run to inspect and modify the instance types matched by the instance selector before creating a node group

  • Additional Volume Mappings

    • Configure additional volume mappings for a managed node group in an EKS cluster

    • Customize volume properties like size, type, encryption, IOPS, and throughput for the additional volumes

    • Attach existing EBS snapshots as additional volumes to the node group

  • Windows Worker Nodes

    • Add Windows node groups to an existing Linux Kubernetes cluster to enable running Windows workloads

    • Schedule workloads on the appropriate operating system (Windows or Linux) using node selectors based on the kubernetes.io/os and kubernetes.io/arch labels

  • Custom AMI support

    • Use the --node-ami flag to specify a custom AMI for node groups, query AWS for the latest EKS-optimized AMI, or use AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to find the AMI.

    • Set the --node-ami-family flag to specify the operating system family for the node group AMI, such as AmazonLinux2, Ubuntu2204, or WindowsServer2022CoreContainer.

    • For Windows node groups, specify a custom AMI and provide a PowerShell bootstrap script via the overrideBootstrapCommand.

  • Custom DNS

    • Overwrite the DNS server IP address used for internal and external DNS lookups