Amazon EKS cluster IAM role

Kubernetes clusters managed by Amazon EKS make calls to other AWS services on your behalf to manage the resources that you use with the service. Before you can create Amazon EKS clusters, you must create an IAM role with the following IAM policies:

• AmazonEKSClusterPolicy

Note

Prior to April 16, 2020, AmazonEKSServicePolicy was also required and the suggested name was eksServiceRole. With the AWSServiceRoleForAmazonEKS service-linked role, that policy is no longer required.

Check for an existing cluster role

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

To check for the eksClusterRole in the IAM console

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

2. In the navigation pane, choose Roles.

3. Search the list of roles for eksClusterRole. If a role that includes eksClusterRole does not exist, then see Creating the Amazon EKS cluster role to create the role. If a role that includes eksClusterRole does exist, then select the role to view the attached policies.

4. Choose Permissions.

5. Ensure that the AmazonEKSClusterPolicy managed policy is attached to the role. If the policy is attached, your Amazon EKS cluster 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": "eks.amazonaws.com"
         },
         "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
       }
     ]
   }

Creating the Amazon EKS cluster role

You can use the AWS Management Console or AWS CloudFormation to create the cluster role if you do not already have one for your account. Select the name of the tool that you'd like to use to create the role.

AWS Management Console

To create your Amazon EKS cluster 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 EKS from the list of services, then EKS - Cluster for your use case, and then Next: Permissions.

4. Choose Next: Tags.

5. (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.

6. Choose Next: Review.

7. For Role name, enter a unique name for your role, such as eksClusterRole, then choose Create role.

AWS CloudFormation

To create your Amazon EKS cluster role with AWS CloudFormation

1. Save the following AWS CloudFormation template to a text file on your local system.

   ---
   AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
   Description: 'Amazon EKS Cluster Role'
   
   
   Resources:
   
     eksClusterRole:
       Type: AWS::IAM::Role
       Properties:
         AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
           Version: '2012-10-17'
           Statement:
           - Effect: Allow
             Principal:
               Service:
               - eks.amazonaws.com
             Action:
             - sts:AssumeRole
         ManagedPolicyArns:
           - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKSClusterPolicy
   
   Outputs:
   
     RoleArn:
       Description: The role that Amazon EKS will use to create AWS resources for Kubernetes clusters
       Value: !GetAtt eksClusterRole.Arn
       Export:
         Name: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-RoleArn"

   Note

   Prior to April 16, 2020, ManagedPolicyArns had an entry for arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKSServicePolicy. With the AWSServiceRoleForAmazonEKS service-linked role, that policy is no longer required.

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

3. Choose Create stack.

4. For Specify template, select Upload a template file, and then choose Choose file.

5. Choose the file you created earlier, and then choose Next.

6. For Stack name, enter a name for your role, such as eksClusterRole, and then choose Next.

7. On the Configure stack options page, choose Next.

8. On the Review page, review your information, acknowledge that the stack might create IAM resources, and then choose Create stack.