Create an ACK capability - Amazon EKS
PrerequisitesChoose your toolWhat happens when you create an ACK capabilityNext steps

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Create an ACK capability

This chapter explains how to create an ACK capability on your Amazon EKS cluster.

Prerequisites

Before creating an ACK capability, ensure you have:

  • An Amazon EKS cluster

  • An IAM Capability Role with permissions for ACK to manage AWS resources

  • Sufficient IAM permissions to create capability resources on EKS clusters

  • The appropriate CLI tool installed and configured, or access to the EKS Console

For instructions on creating the IAM Capability Role, see Amazon EKS capability IAM role.

Important

ACK is an infrastructure management capability that grants the ability to create, modify, and delete AWS resources. This is an admin-scoped capability that should be carefully controlled. Anyone with permission to create Kubernetes resources in your cluster can effectively create AWS resources through ACK, subject to the IAM Capability Role permissions. The IAM Capability Role you provide determines which AWS resources ACK can create and manage. For guidance on creating an appropriate role with least-privilege permissions, see Amazon EKS capability IAM role and Security considerations for EKS Capabilities.

Choose your tool

You can create an ACK capability using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or eksctl:

What happens when you create an ACK capability

When you create an ACK capability:

  1. EKS creates the ACK capability service and configures it to monitor and manage resources in your cluster

  2. Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) are installed in your cluster

  3. The capability assumes the IAM Capability Role you provide

  4. ACK begins watching for its custom resources in your cluster

  5. The capability status changes from CREATING to ACTIVE

Once active, you can create ACK custom resources in your cluster to manage AWS resources.

Next steps

After creating the ACK capability:

  • ACK concepts - Understand ACK concepts and get started with AWS resources

  • ACK concepts - Learn about reconciliation, field exports, and resource adoption patterns

  • Configure ACK permissions - Configure IAM permissions and multi-account patterns