Kubernetes cluster on AWS EKS, Part 1: Setup Kubernetes Dashboard with AWS EKS

This is a series on setting up Kubernetes clusters in Amazon EKS.

In this post, we will setup Kubernetes Dashboard on AWS EKS Cluster.

Prequisites

Have Amazon EKS Cluster ready. For more information please visit Getting started with AWS EKS. This set up has been tested on Kubernetes Cluster V1.24

1. Deploy Kubernetes Dashboard

Apply the dashboard using the following-

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.4.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml

The output is as follows

namespace/kubernetes-dashboard created serviceaccount/kubernetes-dashboard created
service/kubernetes-dashboard created secret/kubernetes-dashboard-certs created 
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-csrf created 
secret/kubernetes-dashboard-key-holder created 
configmap/kubernetes-dashboard-settings created 
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created 
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created 
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kubernetes-dashboard created 
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard created 
service/dashboard-metrics-scraper created 
deployment.apps/dashboard-metrics-scraper created

2. Create an eks-admin Service Account

We need to create a service account with a cluster binding role to connect to the dashboard.

cat >eks-admin-service-account.yaml <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: eks-admin
  namespace: kube-system
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: eks-admin
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: eks-admin
  namespace: kube-system
EOF

Apply the service account + cluster role bindings

kubectl apply -f eks-admin-service-account.yaml

3. Create an Authentication Token

To connect to the dashboard first we need to create a Token.

kubectl create token eks-admin -n kube-system

The output is the token itself, something like

eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6IjI4NGNhNDY3MjMyOGQwOTJiYjBkMWViZjIxNDgxM2Y0MzU4ZDZkYjMifQ.eyJhdWQiOlsiaHR0cHM6Ly9rdWJlcm5ldGVzLmRlZmF1bHQuc3ZjIl0sImV4cCI6MTY3ODA5NDUyMiwiaWF0IjoxNjc4MDkwOTIyLCJpc3MiOiJodHRwczovL29pZGMuZWtzLnVzLWVhc3QtMi5hbWF6b25hd3MuY29tL2lkLzQwOTExMUExODU1NkJEOEEzRTUzQUUxOEU3RjA4MjVFIiwia3ViZXJuZXRlcy5pbyI6eyJuYW1lc3BhY2UiOiJrdWJlLXN5c3RlbSIsInNlcnZpY2VhY2NvdW50Ijp7Im5hbWUiOiJla3MtYWRtaW4iLCJ1aWQiOiJkYWQwYWQxNy0xZWUzLTRlMmMtYTcwOC1jN2RhOWM5YTExYzUifX0sIm5iZiI6MTY3ODA5MDkyMiwic3ViIjoic3lzdGVtOnNlcnZpY2VhY2NvdW50Omt1YmUtc3lzdGVtOmVrcy1hZG1pbiJ9.XD_MSrQTwoBB9Zg1_5R0fu1lZJjqDUNM8dX5yJyay3iDhcCI9SHP7Nx6OxA-tLJ78Mzav8UR56L_Ufhzm0-x2I5yCnDl4MaGzogoIE0NF6vDILL3ljA7U9PoPPMBT3O6GHycxIzXy3HgBsLTR_7M5exGmV3rdiCrQ-lJ2-JDp4KBvkYqDiWZ-eD-W9PVTpfk3kSoeWrynueavOKql1nuHHNgW6YPc8ckxcvrGP7JnVYqATVN7H7iYT5RJj3-IDRJBn3IjLJdWb0s7_LvW6WwoCFQeKyKd7dd3sFGH_-6NZU7ryk5VYVYmMIIbOL6gXgDPz1sPJKbEwYYZ27aYxIVTw

4. Connect to Dashboard

Start Kubectl Proxy

kubectl proxy

To access the dashboard, open the link in a web browser http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/kubernetes-dashboard/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/#/login

This will open the Kubernetes Dashboard in the Web Browser.

For more information on customising metrics please visit kuberneties docs.