EKS (Managed Kubernetes)

The Spinifex console drives the same workflow through a guided form. From the left navigation open EKS → Clusters.

1. Create the cluster

1. Click Create Cluster.
2. Enter a name and choose the Kubernetes version (default 1.32).
3. Choose the cluster IAM role, or create one inline from the dialog.
4. Select the VPC and subnets the cluster will run in.
5. Set endpoint access (public, private, or both) and submit.

The form notes that the authentication mode is API and that the legacy aws-auth ConfigMap is not supported. The cluster appears in the Clusters list as CREATING and flips to ACTIVE once the control plane is healthy.

2. Add a node group

1. Open the cluster and switch to the Node groups tab.
2. Click Add node group, choose the node IAM role, subnets, instance type, and scaling (desired / min / max).
3. Submit and wait for the node group to reach ACTIVE.

3. Manage access and addons

• The Access tab lists IAM principals and their cluster-access policies — add an access entry to let another user or role reach the cluster.
• The Addons tab installs and shows the health of managed addons.
• The Networking tab shows the cluster's VPC, subnets, endpoint access, and the auto-managed security groups.

To run kubectl against the cluster, follow the AWS CLI tab's update-kubeconfig step.

The Terraform workbooks are the fastest way to a working cluster — they build the VPC, IAM roles, cluster, node group, and a demo workload in one apply. Start with eks-quickstart:

git clone --depth 1 --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/mulgadc/spinifex.git spinifex-tf
cd spinifex-tf
git sparse-checkout set docs/terraform-workbooks
cd docs/terraform-workbooks/eks-quickstart

The cluster config points the AWS provider at Spinifex's eks, ec2, iam, and sts endpoints, then creates the cluster and node group:

resource "aws_eks_cluster" "this" {
  name     = "eks-quickstart"
  role_arn = aws_iam_role.cluster.arn
  version  = "1.32"

  access_config {
    authentication_mode = "API"
  }

  vpc_config {
    subnet_ids              = [aws_subnet.a.id, aws_subnet.b.id]
    endpoint_public_access  = true
  }
}

resource "aws_eks_node_group" "default" {
  cluster_name    = aws_eks_cluster.this.name
  node_group_name = "default"
  node_role_arn   = aws_iam_role.node.arn
  subnet_ids      = [aws_subnet.a.id, aws_subnet.b.id]

  scaling_config {
    desired_size = 1
    min_size     = 1
    max_size     = 2
  }

  instance_types = ["t3.medium"]
}

Apply it, then connect:

export AWS_PROFILE=spinifex
tofu init
tofu apply
aws eks update-kubeconfig --name eks-quickstart
kubectl get nodes

The workbooks form a ladder. eks-quickstart is a NodePort demo; eks-https-ingress adds private subnets, a NAT gateway, and HTTPS via the AWS Load Balancer Controller + ACM; eks-gitops-argocd delivers the app from a git repo with the Argo CD addon and persists state on an EBS-CSI (Viperblock-backed) volume. See the full templates linked in Resources.