Configure Amazon EKS for Kubernetes Monitoring

This guide explains how to configure Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) for use with Grafana Cloud Kubernetes Monitoring. It covers prerequisites, IAM setup, Cluster configuration, and integration steps.

Prerequisites

An AWS account with permissions to create and manage EKS Clusters
AWS CLI installed and configured
kubectl and eksctl installed
A Grafana Cloud account

Create an EKS Cluster

Follow Getting started with Amazon EKS to create your EKS Cluster. Ensure your worker Nodes have the necessary IAM permissions for monitoring.

Configure IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA)

To securely grant Kubernetes workloads access to AWS services, use IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA).

Create an IAM OIDC provider for your Cluster:

eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider --region <region> --cluster <cluster-name> --approve

Create an IAM policy for monitoring (for example CloudWatch).

Create a Kubernetes service account and associate it with the IAM role:

eksctl create iamserviceaccount \
  --name <service-account-name> \
  --namespace <namespace> \
  --cluster <cluster-name> \
  --attach-policy-arn arn:aws:iam::<account-id>:policy/<policy-name> \
  --approve

Install Monitoring components

Use Helm to install the Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart:

helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install grafana-k8s-monitoring grafana/k8s-monitoring \
  --namespace <namespace> --create-namespace \
  --values values.yaml

Your values.yaml file holds your Cluster name, your Grafana Cloud credentials, any AWS-specific settings, and the telemetry you want to collect. Cluster metrics, Pod logs, and Cluster events are separate features that you enable individually, so the chart collects only the features you turn on.

For the available features and their YAML keys, refer to Customize the Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart. For a full walkthrough of the values file, refer to Configuration steps for Kubernetes Monitoring with Helm chart.

Validate data flow

Check that the telemetry you enabled, such as Cluster metrics, Pod logs, and Cluster events, is arriving in Grafana Cloud.
Use the Grafana Cloud UI to verify your EKS Cluster appears and is reporting data.