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Create a Node Class for Amazon EKS

Amazon EKS Node Classes provide granular control over the configuration of your EKS Auto Mode managed nodes. A Node Class defines infrastructure-level settings that apply to groups of nodes in your EKS cluster, including network configuration, storage settings, and resource tagging. This topic explains how to create and configure a Node Class to meet your specific operational requirements.

When you need to customize how EKS Auto Mode provisions and configures EC2 instances beyond the default settings, creating a Node Class gives you precise control over critical infrastructure parameters. For example, you can specify private subnet placement for enhanced security, configure instance ephemeral storage for performance-sensitive workloads, or apply custom tagging for cost allocation.

Create a Node Class

To create a Node Class, follow these steps:

You need kubectl installed and configured. For more information, see Set up to use Amazon EKS.

Basic Node Class Example

Here’s an example Node Class:

apiVersion: eks.amazonaws.com/v1
kind: NodeClass
metadata:
  name: private-compute
spec:
  ephemeralStorage:
    size: "160Gi"

This NodeClass increases the amount of ephemeral storage on the node.

Apply this configuration using:

kubectl apply -f nodeclass.yaml

Next, reference the Node Class in your Node Pool configuration. For more information, see Create a Node Pool for EKS Auto Mode.

Create node class access entry

If you create a custom node class, you need to create an EKS Access Entry to permit the nodes to join the cluster. EKS automatically creates access entries when you use the built-in node class and node pools.

For information about how Access Entries work, see Grant IAM users access to Kubernetes with EKS access entries.

When creating access entries for EKS Auto Mode node classes, you need to use the EC2 access entry type.

Create access entry with CLI

To create an access entry for EC2 nodes and associate the EKS Auto Node Policy:

Update the following CLI commands with your cluster name, and node role ARN. The node role ARN is specified in the node class YAML.

# Create the access entry for EC2 nodes
aws eks create-access-entry \
  --cluster-name <cluster-name> \
  --principal-arn <node-role-arn> \
  --type EC2

# Associate the auto node policy
aws eks associate-access-policy \
  --cluster-name <cluster-name> \
  --principal-arn <node-role-arn> \
  --policy-arn arn:aws:eks::aws:cluster-access-policy/AmazonEKSAutoNodePolicy \
  --access-scope type=cluster

Create access entry with CloudFormation

To create an access entry for EC2 nodes and associate the EKS Auto Node Policy:

Update the following CloudFormation with your cluster name, and node role ARN. The node role ARN is specified in the node class YAML.

EKSAutoNodeRoleAccessEntry:
  Type: AWS::EKS::AccessEntry
  Properties:
    ClusterName: <cluster-name>
    PrincipalArn: <node-role-arn>
    Type: "EC2"
    AccessPolicies:
      - AccessScope:
          Type: cluster
        PolicyArn: arn:aws:eks::aws:cluster-access-policy/AmazonEKSAutoNodePolicy
  DependsOn: [ <cluster-name> ] # previously defined in CloudFormation

For information about deploying CloudFormation stacks, see Getting started with CloudFormation

Node Class Specification

apiVersion: eks.amazonaws.com/v1
kind: NodeClass
metadata:
  name: MyNodeClass
spec:
  # Required fields
  role: MyNodeRole  # IAM role for EC2 instances

  subnetSelectorTerms:
    - tags:
        Name: "private-subnet"
        kubernetes.io/role/internal-elb: "1"
    # Alternative using direct subnet ID
    # - id: "subnet-0123456789abcdef0"

  securityGroupSelectorTerms:
    - tags:
        Name: "eks-cluster-sg"
    # Alternative approaches:
    # - id: "sg-0123456789abcdef0"
    # - name: "eks-cluster-security-group"

  # Optional fields
  snatPolicy: Random  # or Disabled

  networkPolicy: DefaultAllow  # or DefaultDeny
  networkPolicyEventLogs: Disabled  # or Enabled

  ephemeralStorage:
    size: "80Gi"    # Range: 1-59000Gi or 1-64000G or 1-58Ti or 1-64T
    iops: 3000      # Range: 3000-16000
    throughput: 125 # Range: 125-1000
    # Optional KMS key for encryption
    kmsKeyID: "arn:aws:kms:region:account:key/key-id"
    # Accepted formats:
    # KMS Key ID
    # KMS Key ARN
    # Key Alias Name
    # Key Alias ARN

  # Optional: Custom certificate bundles
  certificateBundles:
    - name: "custom-cert"
      data: "base64-encoded-cert-data"

  # Optional: Additional EC2 tags (with restrictions)
  tags:
    Environment: "production"
    Team: "platform"
    # Note: Cannot use restricted tags like:
    # - kubernetes.io/cluster/*
    # - karpenter.sh/provisioner-name
    # - karpenter.sh/nodepool
    # - karpenter.sh/nodeclaim
    # - karpenter.sh/managed-by
    # - eks.amazonaws.com/nodeclass

Considerations