AWS

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have the following installed and configured:

AWS CLI: Configured with necessary permissions.
kubectl: Installed and configured.
Helm: Installed.
eksctl: Installed.

1. Create an EKS Cluster

This command creates a new EKS cluster with a managed node group. Adjust the --region, --node-type, and node count options as needed.

eksctl create cluster --name my-cluster --region us-west-2 --nodegroup-name standard-workers --node-type t3.medium --nodes 1 --nodes-min 1 --nodes-max 2 --managed

Output:

2024-08-20 18:21:15 [ℹ]  eksctl version 0.189.0-dev+c9afc4260.2024-08-19T12:43:03Z
2024-08-20 18:21:15 [ℹ]  using region us-west-2
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  setting availability zones to [us-west-2c us-west-2d us-west-2b]
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  subnets for us-west-2c - public:192.168.0.0/19 private:192.168.96.0/19
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  subnets for us-west-2d - public:192.168.32.0/19 private:192.168.128.0/19
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  subnets for us-west-2b - public:192.168.64.0/19 private:192.168.160.0/19
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  nodegroup "standard-workers" will use "" [AmazonLinux2/1.30]
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  using Kubernetes version 1.30
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  creating EKS cluster "my-cluster" in "us-west-2" region with managed nodes
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  will create 2 separate CloudFormation stacks for cluster itself and the initial managed nodegroup
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  if you encounter any issues, check CloudFormation console or try 'eksctl utils describe-stacks --region=us-west-2 --cluster=my-cluster'
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  Kubernetes API endpoint access will use default of {publicAccess=true, privateAccess=false} for cluster "my-cluster" in "us-west-2"
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  CloudWatch logging will not be enabled for cluster "my-cluster" in "us-west-2"
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  you can enable it with 'eksctl utils update-cluster-logging --enable-types={SPECIFY-YOUR-LOG-TYPES-HERE (e.g. all)} --region=us-west-2 --cluster=my-cluster'
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  default addons coredns, vpc-cni, kube-proxy were not specified, will install them as EKS addons
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]
2 sequential tasks: { create cluster control plane "my-cluster",
    2 sequential sub-tasks: {
        2 sequential sub-tasks: {
            1 task: { create addons },
            wait for control plane to become ready,
        },
        create managed nodegroup "standard-workers",
    }
}
2024-08-20 18:21:16 [ℹ]  building cluster stack "eksctl-my-cluster-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:21:18 [ℹ]  deploying stack "eksctl-my-cluster-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:21:48 [ℹ]  waiting for CloudFormation stack "eksctl-my-cluster-cluster"
...
2024-08-20 18:30:29 [ℹ]  creating addon
2024-08-20 18:30:29 [ℹ]  successfully created addon
2024-08-20 18:30:30 [!]  recommended policies were found for "vpc-cni" addon, but since OIDC is disabled on the cluster, eksctl cannot configure the requested permissions; the recommended way to provide IAM permissions for "vpc-cni" addon is via pod identity associations; after addon creation is completed, add all recommended policies to the config file, under `addon.PodIdentityAssociations`, and run `eksctl update addon`
2024-08-20 18:30:30 [ℹ]  creating addon
2024-08-20 18:30:31 [ℹ]  successfully created addon
2024-08-20 18:30:32 [ℹ]  creating addon
2024-08-20 18:30:32 [ℹ]  successfully created addon
2024-08-20 18:32:35 [ℹ]  building managed nodegroup stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers"
2024-08-20 18:32:37 [ℹ]  deploying stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers"
2024-08-20 18:32:37 [ℹ]  waiting for CloudFormation stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers"
...
2024-08-20 18:37:39 [✔]  saved kubeconfig as "/Users/rrelayer/.kube/config"
2024-08-20 18:37:39 [ℹ]  no tasks
2024-08-20 18:37:39 [✔]  all EKS cluster resources for "my-cluster" have been created
2024-08-20 18:37:39 [✔]  created 0 nodegroup(s) in cluster "my-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [ℹ]  nodegroup "standard-workers" has 1 node(s)
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [ℹ]  node "ip-192-168-22-89.us-west-2.compute.internal" is ready
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [ℹ]  waiting for at least 1 node(s) to become ready in "standard-workers"
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [ℹ]  nodegroup "standard-workers" has 1 node(s)
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [ℹ]  node "ip-192-168-22-89.us-west-2.compute.internal" is ready
2024-08-20 18:37:40 [✔]  created 1 managed nodegroup(s) in cluster "my-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:37:41 [ℹ]  kubectl command should work with "/Users/rrelayer/.kube/config", try 'kubectl get nodes'
2024-08-20 18:37:41 [✔]  EKS cluster "my-cluster" in "us-west-2" region is ready

eksctl get cluster --name my-cluster --region us-west-2

Output:

NAME		VERSION	STATUS	CREATED			VPC			SUBNETS														SECURITYGROUPS		PROVIDER
my-cluster	1.30	ACTIVE	2024-08-20T16:21:42Z	vpc-090d3761130933be4	subnet-00f479ddeb9bc51f7,subnet-0123eaaf4d9fb037a,subnet-09256a39c7e39ad7c,subnet-0df075e1795076648,subnet-0ed78cc4efed47b11,subnet-0f64d1e62abe83d4d	sg-0939a7fb80a664be9	EKS

eksctl automatically configures your kubeconfig file. To check your nodes:

kubectl get nodes

Output:

NAME                                          STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
ip-192-168-22-89.us-west-2.compute.internal   Ready    <none>   6m33s   v1.30.2-eks-1552ad0

2. Deploy the Helm Chart

2.1. Download the rrelayer repository

git clone https://github.com/joshstevens19/rrelayer.git

2.2. Configure the `values.yaml` File

Customize the values.yaml for your deployment:

replicaCount: 2
 
image:
  repository: ghcr.io/joshstevens19/rrelayer
  tag: "latest"
  pullPolicy: IfNotPresent
 
service:
  type: ClusterIP
  port: 3000
 
ingress:
  enabled: false
 
postgresql:
  enabled: false

2.3. Install the Helm Chart

helm install rrelayer ./helm/rrelayer -f helm/rrelayer/values.yaml

Output:

NAME: rrelayer
LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Aug 20 18:43:58 2024
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
1. Get the application URL by running these commands:
  export POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pods --namespace default -l "app.kubernetes.io/name=rrelayer,app.kubernetes.io/instance=rrelayer" -o jsonpath="{.items[0].metadata.name}")
  export CONTAINER_PORT=$(kubectl get pod --namespace default $POD_NAME -o jsonpath="{.spec.containers[0].ports[0].containerPort}")
  echo "Visit http://127.0.0.1:8080 to use your application"
  kubectl --namespace default port-forward $POD_NAME 8080:$CONTAINER_PORT

2.4. Verify the Deployment

kubectl get pods

Output:

NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS     AGE
rrelayer-rrelayer-94dd58475-p8g5d   1/1     Running   0            17s

3. Monitor and Manage the Deployment

3.1. Health Monitoring

rrelayer exposes a lightweight health endpoint that reports whether the service is ready to accept traffic. The endpoint lives on the same port as the main API.

3.1.1. Accessing the Health Endpoint

The health endpoint is automatically available when you run rrelayer:

GET /health - Returns the current health status as JSON

Example response:

{
  "status": "healthy"
}

3.1.2. Health Status Types

The response contains a single status field:

healthy - rrelayer is running normally and can process requests
unhealthy - returned as a non-200 HTTP status when rrelayer fails to initialise or encounters a fatal error

3.1.3. Monitoring in Production

For production deployments, you can:

Configure load balancer health checks to target /health
Set up alerting on HTTP status codes (200 OK is healthy; any non-200 indicates an issue)
Forward metrics to observability stacks such as Prometheus, Grafana, or DataDog
Automate incident response when the health endpoint reports failures

3.1.4. Custom Health Port

The health endpoint listens on whatever port you configure for the API. Update api_config.port in rrelayer.yaml if you need to expose the service on a different port:

api_config:
  port: 3000

3.2. View Logs

kubectl logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=rrelayer

Output:

2024-08-20T16:44:17.710908Z  INFO rrelayer is up on http://localhost:3000
2024-08-20T16:44:17.779423Z  INFO Applied database schema

3.3. Upgrade the Helm Chart

helm upgrade rrelayer ./helm/rrelayer -f helm/rrelayer/values.yaml

4. Clean Up

4.1. Uninstall the Helm Chart

helm uninstall rrelayer

Output:

release "rrelayer" uninstalled

4.2. Delete the EKS cluster

eksctl delete cluster --name my-cluster --region us-west-2

Output:

2024-08-20 18:49:04 [ℹ]  deleting EKS cluster "my-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:49:05 [ℹ]  will drain 0 unmanaged nodegroup(s) in cluster "my-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:49:05 [ℹ]  starting parallel draining, max in-flight of 1
2024-08-20 18:49:05 [✖]  failed to acquire semaphore while waiting for all routines to finish: context canceled
2024-08-20 18:49:07 [ℹ]  deleted 0 Fargate profile(s)
2024-08-20 18:49:09 [✔]  kubeconfig has been updated
2024-08-20 18:49:09 [ℹ]  cleaning up AWS load balancers created by Kubernetes objects of Kind Service or Ingress
2024-08-20 18:49:12 [ℹ]
2 sequential tasks: { delete nodegroup "standard-workers", delete cluster control plane "my-cluster" [async]
}
2024-08-20 18:49:12 [ℹ]  will delete stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers"
2024-08-20 18:49:12 [ℹ]  waiting for stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers" to get deleted
2024-08-20 18:49:13 [ℹ]  waiting for CloudFormation stack "eksctl-my-cluster-nodegroup-standard-workers"
....
2024-08-20 18:58:09 [ℹ]  will delete stack "eksctl-my-cluster-cluster"
2024-08-20 18:58:10 [✔]  all cluster resources were deleted

This guide provides the necessary steps to deploy the rrelayer Helm chart on AWS EKS using eksctl.

Prerequisites

1. Create an EKS Cluster

2. Deploy the Helm Chart

2.1. Download the rrelayer repository

2.2. Configure the values.yaml File

2.3. Install the Helm Chart

2.4. Verify the Deployment

3. Monitor and Manage the Deployment

3.1. Health Monitoring

3.1.1. Accessing the Health Endpoint

3.1.2. Health Status Types

3.1.3. Monitoring in Production

3.1.4. Custom Health Port

3.2. View Logs

3.3. Upgrade the Helm Chart

4. Clean Up

4.1. Uninstall the Helm Chart

4.2. Delete the EKS cluster

2.2. Configure the `values.yaml` File