Deploy Consul on AWS EKS using Terraform and Helm
This guide will give you the ability to spin up a AWS Kubernetes Cluster (EKS) and install Consul using Helm. You can grab the code from here https://github.com/maniak-academy/consul-aws-eks-terraform
Prerequisites
The tutorial assumes some basic familiarity with Kubernetes and kubectl but does not assume any pre-existing deployment.
It also assumes that you are familiar with the usual Terraform plan/apply workflow. If you’re new to Terraform itself, refer first to the Getting Started tutorial.
For this, you will need:
- an AWS account with the IAM permissions listed on the EKS module documentation,
- configured AWS CLI
- AWS IAM Authenticator
- kubectl installed
- install helm
Mac Installer
Use the package manager homebrew to install the AWS CLI.
brew install awscliAfter you’ve installed the AWS CLI, configure it by running aws configure.
When prompted, enter your AWS Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, region and output format.
aws configure
AWS Access Key ID [None]: YOUR_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: YOUR_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
Default region name [None]: us-east-2
Default output format [None]: jsonYour default region can be found in the AWS Web Management Console beside you’r username. Select the region drop down to find the region name (eg. us-east-1) corresponding with your location.
Set up and initialize your Terraform workspace
In your terminal, clone the following repository. It contains the example configuration used in this tutorial.
git clone https://github.com/maniak-academy/consul-aws-eks-terraformYou can explore this repository by changing directories or navigating in your UI.
cd consul-aws-eks-terraformIn here, you will find six files used to provision a VPC, security groups, bastion server and an EKS cluster. The final product should be similar to this:
Initialize Terraform workspace
Once you have cloned the repository, initialize your Terraform workspace, which will download and configure the providers.
terraform initProvision the EKS cluster
In your initialized directory, run terraform apply and review the planned actions. Your terminal output should indicate the plan is running and what resources will be created.
terraform apply -auto-approveThis terraform apply will provision a total of all resources (VPC, Security Groups, AutoScaling Groups, Bastion servers EKS Cluster, etc…).
This process should takes up to 10 minutes. Upon successful application, your terminal prints the outputs defined in outputs.tf.
Configure kubectl
Next you will need to configure kubectl.
Run the following command to retrieve the access credentials for your cluster and automatically configure kubectl.
aws eks — region $(terraform output -raw region) update-kubeconfig — name $(terraform output -raw cluster_name)You can then run the command kubectl cluster-info to verify you are connected to your Kubernetes cluster:
$ kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://CCDC5A7DBF4D10997D02A063A1C1CD70.gr7.us-east-2.eks.amazonaws.com
CoreDNS is running at https://CCDC5A7DBF4D10997D02A063A1C1CD70.gr7.us-east-2.eks.amazonaws.com/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxyDeploy Consul on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
You can deploy a complete Consul datacenter using the official Consul Helm chart or the Consul K8S CLI. By default, these methods will install a total of three Consul servers as well as one client per Kubernetes node into your EKS cluster. You can review the Consul Kubernetes installation documentation to learn more about these installation options.
Create a values file
To customizer your deployment, you can pass yaml files to be used during the deployment; it will override the helm chart’s default values. Take a look at the file provided in the repo <i>helm-consul-values.yaml </i> .
Note: If you want to access deploy consul on the internal load balancers in aws you will need to do add the following annotation
annotations: |
‘service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-internal’: “true”``Here is the example Helm Chart.
global:
name: consul
datacenter: hashidc1
ui:
enabled: true
service:
type: LoadBalancer
annotations: |
'service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-internal': "true"
connectInject:
enabled: true
default: true
controller:
enabled: true
ingressGateways:
enabled: true
gateways:
- name: ingress-gateway
service:
type: LoadBalancer
annotations: |
'service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-internal': "true"Install Consul in your cluster
You can now deploy a complete Consul datacenter in your Kubernetes cluster using the official Consul Helm chart.
helm repo add hashicorp https://helm.releases.hashicorp.comNext you can install consul in using the helm chart.
helm install — values helm-consul-values.yaml consul hashicorp/consul — create-namespace — namespace consul — version “0.43.0”Note: It will take a couple minutes for everything to spin up.. about 3–5 minutes
Once it has been completed you can run the command <i> kubectl get pods — namespace consul </i> to verify three servers and three clients were successfully created.
$ kubectl get pods — namespace consul
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
consul-client-9nrzh 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-client-g8sgr 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-client-kvx6h 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-connect-injector-c47b8bc4f-8pf8m 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-connect-injector-c47b8bc4f-8t4pp 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-controller-5bc8cf7fc9–8hrh2 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-ingress-gateway-6f6c96bd8d-2mts7 2/2 Running 0 2m30s
consul-ingress-gateway-6f6c96bd8d-b6sv5 1/2 Running 0 2m30s
consul-server-0 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-server-1 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-server-2 1/1 Running 0 2m30s
consul-webhook-cert-manager-859c76cdf6-rxlm9 1/1 Running 0 2m30sAccessing the Consul UI
Since you enabled the Consul UI in your values file, you can run the command <i>kubectl get services — namespace consul</i> to find the load balancer DNS name or external IP of your UI service.
You will notice that in my helm chart we are using external load balancer so only internal services will be able to access the gui/cli. If you want to change it to internal only set the ‘service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-internal’: “false”``
Note: Here is the URL to access the consul gui http://a6ab063f2acea4b439aa4e336a1d2f3–544204516.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com
$ kubectl get services --namespace consul
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
consul-connect-injector ClusterIP 172.20.217.250 <none> 443/TCP 4m18s
consul-controller-webhook ClusterIP 172.20.157.192 <none> 443/TCP 4m18s
consul-dns ClusterIP 172.20.225.163 <none> 53/TCP,53/UDP 4m18s
consul-ingress-gateway LoadBalancer 172.20.99.127 ac13e16d6d7c249b6867d445483c50a2-1244103388.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com 8080:30037/TCP,8443:32669/TCP 4m18s
consul-server ClusterIP None <none> 8500/TCP,8301/TCP,8301/UDP,8302/TCP,8302/UDP,8300/TCP,8600/TCP,8600/UDP 4m18s
consul-ui LoadBalancer 172.20.92.25 a6ab063f2acea4b439a9a4e336a1d2f3-544204516.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com 80:32712/TCP 4m18sAccessing the Bastion jumpbox
To access the bastion jumpbox you can grab the output from the terraform code it generated by running the following command
terraform output bastian_publicipOutput will look like this
"ssh -i terraform-20220603163956775300000003.pem ubuntu@3.144.233.39"To uninstall Helm consul
To uninstall consul with helm you can run the following command
helm uninstall consul — namespace consulClean up your workspace
Remember to destroy any resources you create once you are done with this tutorial. Run the destroy command and confirm with yes in your terminal.
terraform destroy
