Before you can proceed, you must set up the AWS Command Line Utility (CLI) in order to access the Kubernetes Cluster. This requires an AWS identity with the appropriate permissions; if you do not have this, contact your AWS administrator.

To set up the AWS CLI, please refer to these resources:

• The AWS official walkthrough: here
• This simpler Cloud Academy walkthrough: here
• Any other walkthrough you find on Google.

Make sure you follow the correct instructions for your machine. Continue once you have the CLI installed.

Accessing an Amazon Kubernetes cluster requires the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) at version 1.16 or greater. If you are using an older version, you are required to upgrade before proceeding. Version 1.X is the original AWS CLI, which you currently use. Amazon has subsequently released Version 2 of the CLI, which they recommend. However, there are some breaking changes. You may choose either major version, but must upgrade to version 1.16 or greater.

To upgrade the AWS CLI, please refer to these resources:

• The AWS official walkthrough to upgrade your Version 1: here
• The AWS official walkthrough to upgrade to Version 2: here
• Any other walkthrough you find on Google.

Make sure you follow the correct instructions for your machine. Continue once you have finished the installation.

Accessing AWS resources requires a valid AWS identity set up on your machine. The previous command checked for that. If this gives you an error, you either do not have a valid identity, have not properly linked it to your machine, or have an issue with the AWS CLI.

You will need to fix this error before proceeding. If needed, please contact your AWS administrator with the error code for assistance.

You are going to be authenticating yourself to Kubernetes using your Amazon IAM identity. In order for Kubernetes to recognize this as valid, you need the aws-iam-authenticator as a go-between.

To install the aws-iam-authenticator, please refer to these resources:

• The AWS official walkthrough: here
• The Kubernetes GitHub walkthrough: here
• Any other walkthrough you find on Google.

Make sure you follow the correct instructions for your machine. Continue once you have finished the installation.

Amazon uses the get-token subroutine in order to verify your identity for cluster access.

You will need to fix this error before proceeding. Please contact your AWS administrator with the error code for assistance.

You will communicate with the Amazon Kubernetes cluster using the kubectl command line tool. There are a lot of resources available for this, as it is the primary way of interacting with any Kubernetes cluster, not just the AWS one.

Feel free to install your own local Kubernetes cluster if you wish to have your own testing sandbox to explore. I recommend minikube. This is unnecessary but will give you more freedom to learn, as access to the AWS cluster may be restricted.

To install the kubectl, please refer to these resources:

• The AWS official walkthrough: here
• The Kubernetes official walkthrough: here (Recommended)
• Any other walkthrough you find on Google. You will be able to find a lot more for this since it's not Amazon-specific, so look around for whatever tutorial best suits you.

Make sure you follow the correct instructions for your machine. Continue once you have finished the installation.

This command is required to link your local kubectl to the AWS cluster. Please return to the start and verify that all previous commands have succeeded.

If this fails a second time, please contact both your AWS administrator and your Kubernetes administrator with the error code.

Congratulations! You have successfully accessed the cluster! This message indicates that you have properly set up your configuration, and there's nothing left to be done on your side.

The error message indicates that you do not have access to the cluster, either because the administrator has not added your details correctly or because you do not have permission for this action.

To resolve this, you will need to contact your Kubernetes administrator. To get it fixed quickly, send them these commands and outputs:

If you're faced with a different error, please contact your Kubernetes administrator and proceed after it's resolved

You have successfully installed kubectl and connected it to the Amazon cluster!

You're done with this walkthrough.

This guide will walk you through the steps neccessary to get access to our Amazon EKS Kubernetes cluster on your local machine.

While you'll be directed to other tutorials for most of the distinct installation directions, this guide is intended to make sure you've installed all the dependencies in the correct order. It's mostly a collection of Amazon tutorials, but let's face it, those are far from straightforward. This should give you a clear guide to the necessary steps, while checking that you meet all requirements for the set-up to proceed smoothly, and providing easy debugging for any issues. By the end, you will have access to our cluster.

This works by providing you with verification commands to run. If the command succeeds, you will continue to the next step. If it fails, you'll see how to fix it. Each command comes with examples of the success and failure states. Please note that your results may vary from these examples, especially if you're not using Mac. However, you should get the general idea. When in doubt, assume it failed.