Updating Kubernetes version Configure an Amazon EKS add-on

Updating a Cluster

You can update an existing cluster to a new Kubernetes version or configure managed add-ons for your cluster.

Updating an Amazon EKS cluster Kubernetes version

When a new Kubernetes version is available in Amazon EKS, you can update your cluster to the latest version.

Important

We recommend that before updating to a new Kubernetes version that you review the information in Amazon EKS Kubernetes versions and in the update steps in this topic.

New Kubernetes versions have introduced significant changes. Therefore, we recommend that you test the behavior of your applications against a new Kubernetes version before you update your production clusters. You can achieve this by building a continuous integration workflow to test your application behavior before moving to a new Kubernetes version.

The update process consists of Amazon EKS launching new API server nodes with the updated Kubernetes version to replace the existing ones. Amazon EKS performs standard infrastructure and readiness health checks for network traffic on these new nodes to verify that they're working as expected. If any of these checks fail, Amazon EKS reverts the infrastructure deployment, and your cluster remains on the prior Kubernetes version. Running applications aren't affected, and your cluster is never left in a non-deterministic or unrecoverable state. Amazon EKS regularly backs up all managed clusters, and mechanisms exist to recover clusters if necessary. We're constantly evaluating and improving our Kubernetes infrastructure management processes.

To update the cluster, Amazon EKS requires two to three free IP addresses from the subnets that were provided when you created the cluster. If these subnets don't have available IP addresses, then the update can fail. Additionally, if any of the subnets or security groups that were provided during cluster creation have been deleted, the cluster update process can fail.

Note

Even though Amazon EKS runs a highly available control plane, you might experience minor service interruptions during an update. For example, if you attempt to connect to an API server just before or just after it's terminated and replaced by a new API server running the new version of Kubernetes, you might experience API call errors or connectivity issues. If this happens, retry your API operations until they succeed.

Amazon EKS doesn't modify any of your Kubernetes add-ons when you update a cluster. After updating your cluster, we recommend that you update your add-ons to the versions listed in the following table for the new Kubernetes version that you're updating to. Steps to accomplish this are included in the update procedures.

Kubernetes version	1.18	1.17	1.16	1.15
Amazon VPC CNI plug-in	1.7.5	1.7.5	1.7.5	1.7.5
DNS (CoreDNS)	1.7.0	1.6.6	1.6.6	1.6.6
KubeProxy	1.18.9	1.17.12	1.16.15	1.15.12

If you're using additional add-ons for your cluster that aren't listed in the previous table, update them to the latest compatible versions after updating your cluster.

Update an existing cluster

Update the cluster and Kubernetes add-ons.

To update an existing cluster

Compare the Kubernetes version of your cluster control plane to the Kubernetes version of your nodes.
- Get the Kubernetes version of your cluster control plane with the following command.
```
kubectl version --short
```
- Get the Kubernetes version of your nodes with the following command. This command returns all self-managed and managed Amazon EC2 and Fargate nodes. Each Fargate pod is listed as its own node.
```
kubectl get nodes
```
The Kubernetes minor version of the managed and Fargate nodes in your cluster must be the same as the version of your control plane's current version before you update your control plane to a new Kubernetes version. For example, if your control plane is running version 1.17 and any of your nodes are running version 1.16, update your nodes to version 1.17 before updating your control plane's Kubernetes version to 1.18. We also recommend that you update your self-managed nodes to the same version as your control plane before updating the control plane. For more information see Updating a managed node group and Self-managed node updates. To update the version of a Fargate node, delete the pod that is represented by the node and redeploy the pod after you update your control plane.
The pod security policy admission controller is enabled by default on Amazon EKS clusters. Before updating your cluster, ensure that the proper pod security policies are in place before you update to avoid any issues. You can check for the default policy with the following command:
```
kubectl get psp eks.privileged
```
If you receive the following error, see To install or restore the default pod security policy before proceeding.
```
Error from server (NotFound): podsecuritypolicies.extensions "eks.privileged" not found
```
If you originally deployed your cluster on Kubernetes 1.17 or earlier, then you may need to remove a deprecated term from your CoreDNS manifest.
1. Check to see if your CoreDNS manifest has the line.
```
kubectl get configmap coredns -n kube-system -o yaml |grep upstream
```
  If no output is returned, your manifest doesn't have the line and you can skip to the next step to update your cluster. If output is returned, then you need to remove the line.
2. Edit the configmap, removing the line in the file that has the word upstream in it. Don't change anything else in the file. After the line is removed, save the changes.
```
kubectl edit configmap coredns -n kube-system -o yaml
```
Update your cluster using eksctl, the AWS Management Console, or the AWS CLI.
Important
- Because Amazon EKS runs a highly available control plane, you can update only one minor version at a time. See Kubernetes Version and Version Skew Support Policy for the rationale behind this requirement. Therefore, if your current version is 1.16 and you want to update to 1.18, then you must first update your cluster to 1.17 and then update it from 1.17 to 1.18.
- Make sure that the kubelet on your managed and Fargate nodes are at the same Kubernetes version as your control plane before you update. We also recommend that your self-managed nodes are at the same version as the control plane, though they can be up to one version behind the control plane's current version.
- updating a cluster from 1.16 to 1.17 will fail if you have any AWS Fargate pods that have a kubelet minor version earlier than 1.16. Before updating your cluster from 1.16 to 1.17, you need to recycle your Fargate pods so that their kubelet is 1.16 before attempting to update the cluster to 1.17.
- You may need to update some of your deployed resources before you can update to 1.16. For more information, see Kubernetes 1.16 update prerequisites.
- [ eksctl ]
  
  This procedure requires eksctl version 0.36.0 or later. You can check your version with the following command:
```
eksctl version
```
  For more information about installing or updating eksctl, see Installing or upgrading eksctl. You can only use eksctl to update a cluster that was created with eksctl.
  
  Update your Amazon EKS control plane's Kubernetes version one minor version later than its current version with the following command. Replace <my-cluster> (including <>) with your cluster name.
```
eksctl upgrade cluster --name <my-cluster> --approve
```
  The update takes several minutes to complete.
- [ AWS Management Console ]
  1. Open the Amazon EKS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/eks/home#/clusters.
  2. Choose the name of the cluster to update and choose Update cluster version.
  3. For Kubernetes version, select the version to update your cluster to and choose Update.
  4. For Cluster name, type the name of your cluster and choose Confirm.
    
    The update takes several minutes to complete.
- [ AWS CLI ]
  1. Update your cluster with the following AWS CLI command. Replace the <example-values> (including <>) with your own.
    
    aws eks update-cluster-version \ --region <region-code> \ --name <my-cluster> \ --kubernetes-version <1.18>
    
    Output:
    
    { "update": { "id": "<b5f0ba18-9a87-4450-b5a0-825e6e84496f>", "status": "InProgress", "type": "VersionUpdate", "params": [ { "type": "Version", "value": "1.18" }, { "type": "PlatformVersion", "value": "eks.1" } ], ... "errors": [] } }
  2. Monitor the status of your cluster update with the following command. Use the cluster name and update ID that the previous command returned. Your update is complete when the status appears as Successful. The update takes several minutes to complete.
    
    aws eks describe-update \ --region <region-code> \ --name <my-cluster> \ --update-id <b5f0ba18-9a87-4450-b5a0-825e6e84496f>
    
    Output:
    
    { "update": { "id": "b5f0ba18-9a87-4450-b5a0-825e6e84496f", "status": "Successful", "type": "VersionUpdate", "params": [ { "type": "Version", "value": "1.18" }, { "type": "PlatformVersion", "value": "eks.1" } ], ... "errors": [] } }

Patch the kube-proxy daemonset to use the image that corresponds to your cluster's Region and current Kubernetes version (in this example, 1.18.9).

Kubernetes version	1.18	1.17	1.16	1.15
KubeProxy	1.18.9	1.17.12	1.16.15	1.15.12

First, retrieve your current kube-proxy image:


kubectl get daemonset kube-proxy --namespace kube-system -o=jsonpath='{$.spec.template.spec.containers[:1].image}'

Update kube-proxy to the recommended version by taking the output from the previous step and replacing the version tag with your cluster's recommended kube-proxy version:
```
kubectl set image daemonset.apps/kube-proxy \
  -n kube-system \
  kube-proxy=<602401143452.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com>/eks/kube-proxy:v<1.18.9>-eksbuild.1
```
Your account ID and Region may differ from the example above.
(Optional) If you're using x86 and Arm nodes in the same cluster and your cluster was deployed before August 17,2020. Then, edit your kube-proxy manifest to include a node selector for multiple hardware architectures with the following command. This is a one-time operation. After you've added the selector to your manifest, you don't need to do it each time you update. If your cluster was deployed on or after August 17, 2020, then kube-proxy is already multi-architecture capable.
```
kubectl edit -n kube-system daemonset/kube-proxy
```
Add the following node selector to the file in the editor and then save the file. For an example of where to include this text in the editor, see the CNI manifest file on GitHub. This enables Kubernetes to pull the correct hardware image based on the node's hardware architecture.
```
- key: "beta.kubernetes.io/arch"
                    operator: In
                    values:
                      - amd64
                      - arm64
```

Check your cluster's DNS provider. Clusters that were created with Kubernetes version 1.10 shipped with kube-dns as the default DNS and service discovery provider. If you have updated a 1.10 cluster to a newer version and you want to use CoreDNS for DNS and service discovery, then you must install CoreDNS and remove kube-dns.

To check if your cluster is already running CoreDNS, use the following command.
```
kubectl get pod -n kube-system -l k8s-app=kube-dns
```
If the output shows coredns in the pod names, you're already running CoreDNS in your cluster. If not, see Installing or upgrading CoreDNS to install CoreDNS on your cluster, update it to the recommended version, return here, and skip steps 7-8.

Check the current version of your cluster's coredns deployment.


kubectl describe deployment coredns --namespace kube-system | grep Image | cut -d "/" -f 3

Output:


coredns:v<1.1.3>

The recommended coredns versions for the corresponding Kubernetes versions are as follows:

Kubernetes version	1.18	1.17	1.16	1.15
CoreDNS	1.7.0	1.6.6	1.6.6	1.6.6

If your current coredns version is 1.5.0 or later, but earlier than the recommended version, then skip this step. If your current version is earlier than 1.5.0, then you need to modify the config map for coredns to use the forward plug-in, rather than the proxy plug-in.
1. Open the configmap with the following command.
```
kubectl edit configmap coredns -n kube-system
```
2. Replace proxy in the following line with forward. Save the file and exit the editor.
```
proxy . /etc/resolv.conf
```

Retrieve your current coredns image:


kubectl get deployment coredns --namespace kube-system -o=jsonpath='{$.spec.template.spec.containers[:1].image}'

Update coredns to the recommended version by taking the output from the previous step and replacing <1.7.0> (including <>) with your cluster's recommended coredns version:
```
kubectl set image --namespace kube-system deployment.apps/coredns \
            coredns=<602401143452.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com>/eks/coredns:v<1.7.0>-eksbuild.1
```
(Optional) If you're using x86 and Arm nodes in the same cluster and your cluster was deployed before August 17,2020, then edit your coredns manifest to include a node selector for multiple hardware architectures with the following command. This is a one-time operation. After you've added the selector to your manifest, you don't need to do it each time you update. If you cluster was deployed on or after August 17, 2020, then coredns is already multi-architecture capable.
```
kubectl edit -n kube-system deployment/coredns
```
Add the following node selector to the file in the editor and then save the file. For an example of where to include this text in the editor, see the CNI manifest file on GitHub.
```
- key: "beta.kubernetes.io/arch"
                    operator: In
                    values:
                      - amd64
                      - arm64
```
Check the version of your cluster's Amazon VPC CNI Plugin for Kubernetes. Use the following command to print your cluster's CNI version.
```
kubectl describe daemonset aws-node --namespace kube-system | grep Image | cut -d "/" -f 2
```
The output is as follows:
```
amazon-k8s-cni:<1.6.3>
```
If your CNI version is earlier than 1.7.5, then use the appropriate command below to update your CNI version to the latest recommended version:
- US West (Oregon) (us-west-2)
```
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-vpc-cni-k8s/v1.7.5/config/v1.7/aws-k8s-cni.yaml
```
- China (Beijing) (cn-north-1) or China (Ningxia) (cn-northwest-1)
```
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-vpc-cni-k8s/v1.7.5/config/v1.7/aws-k8s-cni-cn.yaml
```
- AWS GovCloud (US-East) (us-gov-east-1)
```
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-vpc-cni-k8s/v1.7.5/config/v1.7/aws-k8s-cni-us-gov-east-1.yaml
```
- AWS GovCloud (US-West) (us-gov-west-1)
```
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-vpc-cni-k8s/v1.7.5/config/v1.7/aws-k8s-cni-us-gov-west-1.yaml
```
- For all other Regions
  - Download the manifest file.
    
    curl -o aws-k8s-cni.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-vpc-cni-k8s/v1.7.5/config/v1.7/aws-k8s-cni.yaml
  - Replace <region-code> in the following command with the Region that your cluster is in. Then, run the modified command to replace the Region code in the file (currently us-west-2).
    
    sed -i -e 's/us-west-2/<region-code>/' aws-k8s-cni.yaml
  - Apply the modified manifest file to your cluster.
    
    kubectl apply -f aws-k8s-cni.yaml
(Optional) If you deployed the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler to your cluster before updating the cluster, update the Cluster Autoscaler to the latest version that matches the Kubernetes major and minor version that you updated to.

Important

You can't use the Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler with Arm.
1. Open the Cluster Autoscaler releases page in a web browser and find the latest Cluster Autoscaler version that matches your cluster's Kubernetes major and minor version. For example, if your cluster's Kubernetes version is 1.18 find the latest Cluster Autoscaler release that begins with 1.18. Record the semantic version number (<1.18.n>) for that release to use in the next step.
2. Set the Cluster Autoscaler image tag to the version that you recorded in the previous step with the following command. Replace <1.18.n> with your own value. You can replace us with <asia> or <eu>.
```
kubectl -n kube-system set image deployment.apps/cluster-autoscaler cluster-autoscaler=<us>.gcr.io/k8s-artifacts-prod/autoscaling/cluster-autoscaler:v<1.18.n>
```
  Note
  
  Depending on the version that you need, you may need to change the previous address to gcr.io/google-containers/cluster-autoscaler:v1.<n.n> . The image address is listed on the releases page.
(Clusters with GPU nodes only) If your cluster has node groups with GPU support (for example, p3.2xlarge), you must update the NVIDIA device plugin for Kubernetes DaemonSet on your cluster with the following command.
```
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin/v0.6.0/nvidia-device-plugin.yml
```
After your cluster update is complete, update your nodes to the same Kubernetes version of your updated cluster. For more information, see Self-managed node updates or Updating a managed node group. Any new pods launched on Fargate will have a kubelet version that matches your cluster version. Existing Fargate pods won't be changed.

Kubernetes 1.16 update prerequisites

As noted in the Kubernetes 1.15 changelog and Deprecated APIs Removed In 1.16: Here’s What You Need To Know documents, if you have an existing cluster, API changes are required for the following deployed resources before updating a cluster to 1.16.

Warning

If you don't change these APIs before updating to 1.16, workloads fail after the update is complete.

NetworkPolicy resources will no longer be served from extensions/v1beta1 in v1.16. Migrate use to the networking.k8s.io/v1 API, available since v1.8. Existing persisted data can be retrieved through the networking.k8s.io/v1 API.
PodSecurityPolicy resources will no longer be served from extensions/v1beta1 in v1.16. Migrate to the policy/v1beta1 API, available since v1.10. Existing persisted data can be retrieved through the policy/v1beta1 API.
DaemonSet, Deployment, StatefulSet, and ReplicaSet resources will no longer be served from extensions/v1beta1, apps/v1beta1, or apps/v1beta2 in v1.16. Migrate to the apps/v1 API, available since v1.9. Existing persisted data can be retrieved through the apps/v1 API. For example, to convert a Deployment that currently uses apps/v1beta1, enter the following command.
```
kubectl convert -f ./<my-deployment.yaml> --output-version apps/v1
```
Note

The previous command may use different default values from what is set in your current manifest file. To learn more about a specific resource, see the Kubernetes API reference.

If you originally created an Amazon EKS cluster with Kubernetes version 1.11 or earlier and haven't removed the --resource-container flag from the kube-proxy DaemonSet, then updating to Kubernetes 1.16 will cause kube-proxy failures. This flag is deprecated in Kubernetes 1.16. For more information, see kube-proxy in Kubernetes 1.16 Deprecations and removals. You must remove this flag before updating to Kubernetes 1.16.

What you need to do before updating to 1.16

Change your YAML files to reference the new APIs.
Update custom integrations and controllers to call the new APIs.
Ensure that you use an updated version of any third party tools, such as ingress controllers, continuous delivery systems, and other tools that call the new APIs.

To easily check for deprecated API usage in your cluster, make sure that the audit control plane log is enabled, and specify v1beta as a filter for the events. All of the replacement APIs are in Kubernetes versions later than 1.10. Applications on any supported version of Amazon EKS can begin using the updated APIs now.
Remove the --resource-container="" flag from your kube-proxy DaemonSet, if your cluster was originally deployed with Kubernetes 1.11 or earlier or use a kube-proxy configuration file (recommended). To determine whether your current version of kube-proxy has the flag, enter the following command.
```
kubectl get daemonset kube-proxy --namespace kube-system -o yaml | grep 'resource-container='
```
If you receive no output, then you don't need to remove anything. If you receive output similar to --resource-container="", then you need to remove the flag. Enter the following command to edit your current kube-proxy config.
```
kubectl edit daemonset kube-proxy --namespace kube-system
```
With the editor open, remove the --resource-container="" line, and save the file. We recommend that you instead, start using a kube-proxy configuration file. To do so, download the following manifest.
```
curl -o kube-proxy-daemonset.yaml https://amazon-eks.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cloudformation/2020-06-10/kube-proxy-daemonset.yaml
```
Determine your cluster's endpoint with the following command.
```
aws eks describe-cluster \
    --name <cluster-name> \
    --region <region-code> \
    --query 'cluster.endpoint' \
    --output text
```
The ouput is as follows:
```
https://<A89DBB2140C8AC0C2F920A36CCC6E18C>.sk1.<region-code>.eks.amazonaws.com
```
Edit the kube-proxy-daemonset.yaml file that you downloaded. In your editor, replace <MASTER_ENDPOINT> (including <>) with the output from the previous command. Replace <REGION> with your cluster's Region. On the same line, replace the version with the version of your cluster if necessary. Apply the file with the following command.
```
kubectl apply -f kube-proxy-daemonset.yaml
```

Configure an Amazon EKS add-on

An add-on is Kubernetes operational software that provides capabilities like observability, scaling, networking, and AWS cloud resource integrations for your Amazon EKS cluster. You can manage add-ons yourself, or let Amazon EKS control the launch and version of the add-on through the Amazon EKS API for clusters running Kubernetes version 1.18 with platform version eks.3 or later. Amazon EKS add-ons use the Kubernetes Server-Side Apply feature, which is only available with Kubernetes version 1.18 or later. For more information, see Server-Side Apply in the Kubernetes documentation.

To configure an Amazon EKS add-on using the AWS Management Console

Open the Amazon EKS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/eks/home#/clusters.
In the left navigation, select Clusters, and then select the name of the cluster that you want to configure an Amazon EKS add-on for.
Choose the Configuration tab and then choose the Add-ons tab.
Configure the add-on. To add a new Amazon EKS add-on, select Add new. To change an existing Amazon EKS add-on, select the add-on and choose Edit. To remove an add-on, select the add-on and select Remove. Removing the add-on also removes it from your cluster. You can always manually add the add-on back to your cluster, but be aware that its removal and addition could cause service disruption to your cluster.
1. Select the Name of the Amazon EKS add-on that you want to add or edit.
2. Select the Version of the Amazon EKS add-on that you want to use.
3. Select the Service account role that you want the add-on to run as. If you don't select an existing IAM role, then the Amazon EKS node IAM role is used. However, we recommend specifying your own role so that the node IAM role isn't assigned more than the minimum permissions that it requires.
  
  Whichever role you choose must be assigned the permissions required by the add-on. For example, the role that you specify for the vpc-cni add-on must have the AmazonEKS_CNI_Policy IAM policy assigned to it, and the role must have unique settings in its trust relationship. For more information, see To create your CNI plugin IAM role with the AWS Management Console. If the Kubernetes service account used by the add-on isn't currently annotated with the IAM role that you specify, then the API will annotate the service account with the IAM role for you.
  
  Important
  
  To specify an IAM role, you must have an IAM OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider for your cluster. To create an OIDC provider, see Create an IAM OIDC provider for your cluster.
4. If you currently have the add-on deployed to your cluster, are managing it yourself, and want Amazon EKS to manage the add-on you can Enable Override existing configuration for this add-on on the cluster. If you enable this option, then any setting for the existing add-on can be overwritten with the Amazon EKS add-on's settings. If you currently have the add-on deployed to your cluster and don't enable this option and any of the Amazon EKS add-on settings conflict with your existing settings, then migrating the add-on to an Amazon EKS add-on will fail, and you'll receive an error message to help you resolve the conflict.
5. Select Add or Update.

To configure an Amazon EKS add-on using eksctl

Replace the <example values> (including <>) with your own values.

Add an Amazon EKS add-on to your cluster.
1. Determine which Amazon EKS add-ons are available for your cluster.
```
eksctl utils describe-addon-versions --cluster <name-of-your-cluster>
```
2. Add an Amazon EKS add-on to your cluster. When specifying <name-of-addon>, specify a name returned from the previous command. The --force option overwrites any existing configuration if the add-on is already installed on your cluster, but you're managing it yourself. You can specify the ARN of an IAM role, policy, or both. The add-on's Kubernetes service account is then annotated with the role. If you don't specify an existing role or policy, eksctl creates a default role and attaches the necessary policy to it for you.
```
eksctl create addon --name <name--of-addon-from-previous-command> --cluster <name-of-your-cluster> --force
```

You can update an add-on to a newer version. See other update options with eksctl update addon -h.

Determine which versions are available for an add-on.


eksctl utils describe-addon-versions --name <name-of-addon> --cluster <name-of-your-cluster>

Update the add-on to a newer version.


eksctl update addon --name <name-from-previous-command> --version <version-from-previous-command> --cluster <name-of-your-cluster>

Delete an Amazon EKS add-on from your cluster.
1. See which add-ons are currently enabled for your cluster.
```
eksctl get addons --cluster <name-of-your-cluster>
```
2. Delete an Amazon EKS add-on from your cluster. Deleting the add-on also deletes any IAM roles associated to it.
```
eksctl delete addon --cluster <name-of-your-cluster> --name <addon-name-from-previous-command>
```

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Document Conventions

Creating a cluster

Deleting a cluster