Using kubernetes cilium.io with awsloadbalancercontroller

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To use Cilium with AWS Load Balancer Controller on a Kubernetes cluster, you'll first need to have a Kubernetes cluster running on AWS. AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) is a common choice for this.

Cilium is a CNI (Container Network Interface) that provides networking and security capabilities for container workloads. The AWS Load Balancer Controller manages AWS Load Balancers for a Kubernetes cluster, enabling you to set up ingress using AWS Elastic Load Balancing.

Here's a high-level overview of the steps we'll take in the Pulumi program:

1. Provision an EKS cluster in AWS.
2. Install Cilium to handle networking within the EKS cluster.
3. Deploy the AWS Load Balancer Controller to manage AWS Load Balancers.

Now let's dive into the Pulumi program written in TypeScript:

```typescript
import * as awsx from "@pulumi/awsx";
import * as eks from "@pulumi/eks";
import * as k8s from "@pulumi/kubernetes";

// Create an EKS cluster with the default configuration.
const eksCluster = new eks.Cluster("my-cluster");

// Once the cluster is created, we can use the kubeconfig to interact with it.
const kubeconfig = eksCluster.kubeconfig.apply(JSON.stringify);

// Deploy Cilium CNI for networking using the Helm chart.
const ciliumChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("cilium", {
  chart: "cilium",
  version: "1.9.1", // Use a specific version or replace with the version you want to install
  namespace: "kube-system", // Deploy Cilium in the kube-system namespace
  fetchOpts: {
    repo: "https://helm.cilium.io/",
  },
}, {provider: new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {kubeconfig})});

// Deploy the AWS Load Balancer Controller using the Helm chart.
const albControllerChart = new k8s.helm.v3.Chart("aws-loadbalancer-controller", {
  chart: "aws-load-balancer-controller",
  version: "1.1.6", // Use a specific version or replace with the version you want to install
  namespace: "kube-system", // Deploy the controller in the kube-system namespace
  fetchOpts: {
    repo: "https://aws.github.io/eks-charts",
  },
  values: {
    clusterName: eksCluster.name,
    serviceAccount: {
      // The controller will use this service account which has necessary IAM permissions.
      create: false, // Assumes an IAM role for service account is already created and annotated.
      name: "aws-load-balancer-controller", // Replace with the actual service account name
    },
  },
}, {provider: new k8s.Provider("k8s-provider", {kubeconfig})});

// Export the kubeconfig and cluster name
export const kubeconfigOutput = kubeconfig;
export const clusterName = eksCluster.name;
```

Here's what the program does:

- **EKS Cluster**: We are using Pulumi's EKS module to create an EKS cluster. This simplifies setting up an EKS cluster by providing reasonable defaults.
- **Cilium CNI**: Using Pulumi's Kubernetes provider and the Helm Chart module, we install Cilium from its Helm chart repository. Cilium will manage the networking for pods inside the cluster.
- **AWS Load Balancer Controller**: Again, using the Kubernetes provider and Helm Chart module, we install the AWS Load Balancer Controller. It is responsible for managing AWS Load Balancers in response to Kubernetes Ingress objects.

Remember when using Pulumi to handle your cloud resources, you'll need to have the AWS CLI configured with the appropriate credentials to allow Pulumi to make changes to your AWS account. Also, ensure you have `kubectl` and `helm` installed if you plan to work with the resources manually too.

If you are interacting with your Kubernetes cluster for the first time, you will need to set up your `kubeconfig` file correctly to use tools like `kubectl`.

After deploying this Pulumi program, your Kubernetes cluster will have both Cilium and the AWS Load Balancer Controller installed and ready to manage networking and AWS load balancing resources respectively.