Installing eksctl

This topic covers eksctl, a simple command line utility for creating and managing Kubernetes clusters on Amazon EKS. The eksctl command line utility provides the fastest and easiest way to create a new cluster with nodes for Amazon EKS. For more information and to see the official documentation, visit https://eksctl.io/.

This topic helps you to download and install eksctl binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows operating systems.

Prerequisite

The kubectl command line tool installed on your computer or AWS CloudShell. The version must be the same, or up to two versions later than your cluster version. To install or upgrade kubectl, see Installing kubectl.

Installing or upgrading eksctl

This section helps you install or upgrade to the latest version of the eksctl command line utility. Complete the procedure for your operating system.

macOS

To install or upgrade eksctl on macOS

The easiest way to get started with Amazon EKS and macOS is by installing eksctl with Homebrew, an open-source tool that can be installed using these instructions. The eksctl Homebrew recipe installs eksctl and any other dependencies that are required for Amazon EKS, such as kubectl. The recipe also installs the aws-iam-authenticator, which is required if you don't have the AWS CLI version 1.16.156 or higher installed.

1. If you do not already have Homebrew installed on macOS, install it with the following command.

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

2. Install the Weaveworks Homebrew tap.

   brew tap weaveworks/tap

3. Install or upgrade eksctl.

   • Install eksctl with the following command:

     brew install weaveworks/tap/eksctl

   • If eksctl is already installed, run the following command to upgrade:

     brew upgrade eksctl && brew link --overwrite eksctl

4. Test that your installation was successful with the following command.

   eksctl version

   Note

   The GitTag version should be at least 0.97.0. If not, check your terminal output for any installation or upgrade errors, or manually download an archive of the release from https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases/download/v0.97.0/eksctl_Darwin_amd64.tar.gz, extract eksctl, and then run it.

Linux

To install or upgrade eksctl on Linux

1. Download and extract the latest release of eksctl with the following command.

   curl --silent --location "https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases/latest/download/eksctl_$(uname -s)_amd64.tar.gz" | tar xz -C /tmp

2. Move the extracted binary to /usr/local/bin.

   sudo mv /tmp/eksctl /usr/local/bin

3. Test that your installation was successful with the following command.

   eksctl version

   Note

   The GitTag version should be at least 0.97.0. If not, check your terminal output for any installation or upgrade errors, or replace the address in step 1 with https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases/download/v0.97.0/eksctl_Linux_amd64.tar.gz and complete steps 1-3 again.

Windows

To install or upgrade eksctl on Windows

1. If you do not already have Chocolatey installed on your Windows system, see Installing Chocolatey.

2. Install or upgrade eksctl.

   • Install the binaries with the following command:

     choco install -y eksctl 

   • If they are already installed, run the following command to upgrade:

     choco upgrade -y eksctl 

3. Test that your installation was successful with the following command.

   eksctl version

   Note

   The GitTag version should be at least 0.97.0. If not, check your terminal output for any installation or upgrade errors, or manually download an archive of the release from https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases/download/v0.97.0/eksctl_Windows_amd64.zip, extract eksctl, and then run it.