Amazon EKS node IAM role - Amazon EKS
Check for an existing node roleCreating the Amazon EKS node IAM role

Amazon EKS node IAM role

The Amazon EKS node kubelet daemon makes calls to AWS APIs on your behalf. Nodes receive permissions for these API calls through an IAM instance profile and associated policies. Before you can launch nodes and register them into a cluster, you must create an IAM role for those nodes to use when they are launched. This requirement applies to nodes launched with the Amazon EKS optimized AMI provided by Amazon, or with any other node AMIs that you intend to use. Before you create nodes, you must create an IAM role with the following IAM policies:

Check for an existing node role

You can use the following procedure to check and see if your account already has the Amazon EKS node role.

To check for the NodeInstanceRole in the IAM console

  1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

  2. In the navigation panel, choose Roles.

  3. Search the list of roles for NodeInstanceRole. If a role that contains NodeInstanceRole does not exist, then see Creating the Amazon EKS node IAM role to create the role. If a role that contains NodeInstanceRole does exist, then select the role to view the attached policies.

  4. Choose Permissions.

  5. Ensure that the AmazonEKSWorkerNodePolicy, AmazonEKS_CNI_Policy, and AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryReadOnly managed policies are attached to the role. If the policies are attached, your Amazon EKS node role is properly configured.

  6. Choose Trust Relationships, Edit Trust Relationship.

  7. Verify that the trust relationship contains the following policy. If the trust relationship matches the policy below, choose Cancel. If the trust relationship does not match, copy the policy into the Policy Document window and choose Update Trust Policy. 

    {
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}

Creating the Amazon EKS node IAM role

If you created your nodes by following the steps in the Getting started with the AWS Management Console or Getting started with eksctl topics, then the node role already exists and you don't need to manually create it. You can use the AWS Management Console or AWS CloudFormation to create the Amazon EKS node role if you do not already have one for your account. You can create the node role with the AWS Management Console or AWS CloudFormation.

To create your Amazon EKS node role in the IAM console

  1. Open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

  2. Choose Roles, then Create role.

  3. Choose EC2 from the list of Common use cases under Choose a use case, then choose Next: Permissions.

  4. In the Filter policies box, enter AmazonEKSWorkerNodePolicy. Check the box to the left of AmazonEKSWorkerNodePolicy.

  5. In the Filter policies box, enter AmazonEKS_CNI_Policy. Check the box to the left of AmazonEKS_CNI_Policy.

  6. In the Filter policies box, enter AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryReadOnly. Check the box to the left of AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryReadOnly.

  7. Choose Next: Tags.

  8. (Optional) Add metadata to the role by attaching tags as key–value pairs. For more information about using tags in IAM, see Tagging IAM Entities in the IAM User Guide.

  9. Choose Next: Review.

  10. For Role name, enter a unique name for your role, such as NodeInstanceRole. For Role description, replace the current text with descriptive text such as Amazon EKS - Node Group Role, then choose Create role.

To create your Amazon EKS node role using AWS CloudFormation

  1. Open the AWS CloudFormation console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation.

  2. Choose Create stack and then choose With new resources (standard).

  3. For Specify template, select Amazon S3 URL.

  4. Paste the following URL into the Amazon S3 URL text area and choose Next twice: 

    https://amazon-eks.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cloudformation/2020-08-12/amazon-eks-nodegroup-role.yaml

  5. On the Specify stack details page, for Stack name enter a name such as eks-node-group-instance-role and choose Next.

  6. (Optional) On the Configure stack options page, you can choose to tag your stack resources. Choose Next.

  7. On the Review page, check the box in the Capabilities section and choose Create stack.

  8. When your stack is created, select it in the console and choose Outputs.

  9. Record the NodeInstanceRole value for the IAM role that was created. You need this when you create your node group.