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Connect an AWS EKS cluster#

Lens Desktop supports access to multiple Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) clusters using the single sign-on mechanism.

Prerequisites#

To add an AWS EKS cluster to Lens Desktop, you need to install and configure AWS CLI. See Get started with AWS CLI and Configuration and credential file settings for details.

Detect an AWS EKS cluster#

To detect your clusters automatically, you need to have the AWS CLI tool configured to the AWS profile(s) corresponding to your cluster(s). In this scenario, Lens Desktop displays available AWS EKS clusters in Kubernetes Clusters >AWS EKS. However, this way requires you to stay logged in AWS, as Lens Desktop relies on the active AWS session to access the profiles configured in AWS CLI. It enables fetching the available clusters from those AWS profiles. If you are logged out of AWS CLI, Lens Desktop displays the lock icon next to each profile signalling that authentication is required. Click the icon to log into the AWS system from Lens Desktop, or log in from AWS CLI.

Add an AWS EKS cluster kubeconfig#

To update your local kubeconfig, use the aws eks update-kubeconfig AWS CLI utility. The config file gets the AWS EKS cluster configurations, which enables Lens Desktop to discover the cluster similarly to kubectl. You can access your cluster at Kubernetes Clusters > Local Kubeconfigs.

To add an AWS EKS cluster:

  1. Required only at the initial session. Configure the AWS SSO session:

    aws configure sso
SSO session name (Recommended): <sso-name>
SSO start URL [None]: https://<sso-portal>.awsapps.com/start
SSO region [None]: <region-name>
    If the parameters are specified correctly, an SSO authentication page opens to confirm that the request has been approved. After returning to the CLI tool, if you have multiple AWS accounts, select the one that corresponds to the target cluster.

  2. Start the AWS SSO session:

    aws sso login
    An SSO authentication page opens to confirm that the request has been approved. After returning to the CLI tool, if you have several AWS accounts, select the one that corresponds to the target cluster.

  3. Update your local kubeconfig:

    Info

    As the AWS account region and the cluster region may differ, specify the region that corresponds to the cluster.

    aws eks --region <region-name> update-kubeconfig --name <cluster-name>

  4. Check if kubeconfig has been updated:

    kubectl config get-contexts

    System response example:

    CURRENT   NAME                                                                 CLUSTER                                                              AUTHINFO                                                             NAMESPACE
          aks-lens-cluster                                                     aks-lens-cluster                                                     clusterUser_aks-lens-resource-group_aks-lens-cluster
*         arn:aws:eks:eu-north-1:841310725496:cluster/exciting-classical-ant   arn:aws:eks:eu-north-1:841310725496:cluster/exciting-classical-ant   arn:aws:eks:eu-north-1:841310725496:cluster/exciting-classical-ant
          docker-desktop                                                       docker-desktop                                                       docker-desktop

  5. Open Lens Desktop and check if the new cluster appears in Navigator > Local Kubeconfigs section.