Deploy an Ubuntu Pro EKS cluster - using a Pro AMI

This guide shows how to deploy an Ubuntu Pro EKS cluster using an EKS Pro AMI. You can also use Pro tokens and an EC2 launch template to deploy such a cluster. For instructions on how to do that, refer to Deploy an Ubuntu Pro EKS cluster - using Pro tokens.

An EKS Pro AMI is an Ubuntu EKS AMI with the Pro service included, which provides services such as Livepatch for LTS-based nodes and Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM).

Currently, only Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS is available as an EKS AMI, and it does not include the FIPS components. For an earlier version, such as Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS, use Pro tokens as mentioned above. For including FIPS, refer to Deploy an Ubuntu Pro FIPS EKS cluster - using a Pro AMI.

Prerequisites

You need:

Create the eksctl config file

Create a config.yaml with the following content:

---
apiVersion: eksctl.io/v1alpha5
kind: ClusterConfig

metadata:
  name: my-pro-cluster
  region: us-east-1
  version: '1.31'

iam:
  withOIDC: true

nodeGroups:
  - name: ng-ubuntu-pro-2404
    instanceType: m5.large
    desiredCapacity: 3
    amiFamily: UbuntuPro2404
    iam:
       attachPolicyARNs:
          - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKSWorkerNodePolicy
          - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryReadOnly
          - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore
          - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKS_CNI_Policy
    ssh:
        allow: true
        publicKeyName: myKeyPair

This config file will allow you to use eksctl to create an EKS cluster and node groups. By specifying amiFamily: UbuntuPro2404, we ensure that the EKS Pro AMI will be used during creation and deployment.

To use an Ubuntu specific Ubuntu Pro AMI version, set amiFamily to one of these choices: - UbuntuPro2204 for EKS version >= 1.29 - UbuntuPro2404 for EKS version >= 1.31

For further cluster customization check out eksctl details.

Deploy the EKS cluster

To create the EKS cluster, run:

eksctl create cluster -f config.yaml

You might need to specify the --profile option if you have multiple profiles.

You can confirm the status of the nodes on your cluster using:

$ kubectl get nodes

NAME                                           STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
ip-xxx-xxx-xx-xxx.us-east-1.compute.internal   Ready    <none>   2m45s   v1.31.x
ip-xxx-xxx-x-xx.us-east-1.compute.internal     Ready    <none>   2m45s   v1.31.x

(Optional) Verify Pro subscription

To check that the deployed nodes have Ubuntu Pro, run:

$ aws --region <region_name> ec2 describe-instances \
      --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=running \
      --query 'Reservations[*].Instances[*].[InstanceType, LaunchTime, PlatformDetails]'
      --output table

----------------------------------------------------------------
|                       DescribeInstances                      |
+-----------+-----------------------------+--------------------+
|  m5.large |  2024-05-07T19:57:33+00:00  |  Ubuntu Pro Linux  |
|  m5.large |  2024-05-07T19:57:33+00:00  |  Ubuntu Pro Linux  |
+-----------+-----------------------------+--------------------+