AWS Reference Platform

This repository contains a reference AWS Platform Configuration for Crossplane. It's a great starting point for building internal cloud platforms with AWS and offering a self-service API to your internal development teams.

This platform provides APIs to provision fully configured EKS clusters, with secure networking, and stateful cloud services (RDS) designed to securely connect to the nodes in each EKS cluster — all composed using cloud service primitives from the Official Upbound AWS Provider. App deployments can securely connect to the infrastructure they need using secrets distributed directly to the app namespace.

Overview

This reference platform defines a custom API for creating an EKS cluster (XCluster) which includes the actual EKS cluster, a network fabric, Prometheus, and other cluster services (XServices). Additionally, it defines a custom API for provisioning RDS Databases (XSQLInstance).

graph LR;
    MyApp(My App)---MyCluster(XRC: my-cluster);
    MyCluster---XRD1(XRD: XCluster);
    MyApp---MyDB(XRC: my-db);
    MyDB---XRD2(XRD: XSQLInstance);
		subgraph Configuration:upbound/platform-ref-aws;
	    XRD1---Composition(XEKS, XNetwork, XServices);
	    XRD2---Composition2(Composition);
		end
		subgraph Provider:upbound/provider-aws
	    Composition---IAM.MRs(MRs: IAM Role, RolePolicyAttachment,OpenIDConnectProvider);
	    Composition---EKS.MRs(MRs: EKS Cluster, ClusterAuth, NodeGroup);
	    Composition2---RDS.MRs(MRs: RDS SubnetGroup, Instance);
		end

style MyApp color:#000,fill:#e6e6e6,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style MyCluster color:#000,fill:#D68A82,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style MyDB color:#000,fill:#D68A82,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style Configuration:upbound/platform-ref-aws fill:#f1d16d,opacity:0.3
style Provider:upbound/provider-aws fill:#81CABB,opacity:0.3
style XRD1 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray: 5 5
style XRD2 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px,stroke-dasharray: 5 5
style Composition color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style Composition2 color:#000,fill:#f1d16d,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px

style IAM.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style EKS.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px
style RDS.MRs color:#000,fill:#81CABB,stroke:#000,stroke-width:2px

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Learn more about Composite Resources in the Crossplane Docs.

Quickstart

Prerequisites

Before we can install the reference platform we should install the up CLI. This is a utility that makes following this quickstart guide easier. Everything described here can also be done in a declarative approach - which we highly recommend for any production type use-case.

To install up run this install script:

curl -sL https://cli.upbound.io | sh

See up docs for more install options.

We need a running Crossplane control plane to install our instance. We are using Universal Crossplane (UXP) . Ensure that your kubectl context points to the correct Kubernetes cluster or create a new kind cluster:

kind create cluster

Finally install UXP into the upbound-system namespace:

up uxp install

You can validate the install by inspecting all installed components:

kubectl get all -n upbound-system

Install the AWS Reference Platform

Now you can install this reference platform. It's packaged as a Crossplane configuration package so there is a single command to install it:

up ctp configuration install xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/platform-ref-aws:v0.6.0

Validate the install by inspecting the provider and configuration packages:

kubectl get providers,providerrevision

kubectl get configurations,configurationrevisions

Check the marketplace for the latest version of this platform.

Configure the AWS provider

Before we can use the reference platform we need to configure it with AWS credentials:

# Create a creds.conf file with the aws cli:
AWS_PROFILE=default && echo -e "[default]\naws_access_key_id = $(aws configure get aws_access_key_id --profile $AWS_PROFILE)\naws_secret_access_key = $(aws configure get aws_secret_access_key --profile $AWS_PROFILE)" > creds.conf

# Create a K8s secret with the AWS creds:
kubectl create secret generic aws-creds -n upbound-system --from-file=credentials=./creds.conf

# Configure the AWS Provider to use the secret:
kubectl apply -f examples/aws-default-provider.yaml

See provider-aws docs for more detailed configuration options.

Using the AWS reference platform

🎉 Congratulations. You have just installed your first Crossplane-powered platform!

Application developers can now use the platform to request resources which then will be provisioned in AWS. This would usually be done by bundling a claim as part of the application code. In our example here we simply create the claims directly:

Create a custom defined cluster:

kubectl apply -f examples/cluster-claim.yaml

Create a custom defined database:

kubectl apply -f examples/postgres-claim.yaml

NOTE: The database abstraction relies on the cluster claim to be ready - it uses the same network to have connectivity with the EKS cluster.

Alternatively, you can use a mariadb claim:

kubectl apply -f examples/mariadb-claim.yaml

Now deploy the sample application:

kubectl apply -f examples/ghost-claim.yaml

You can verify the status by inspecting the claims, composites and managed resources:

kubectl get claim,composite,managed

To delete the provisioned resources you would simply delete the claims:

kubectl delete -f examples/cluster-claim.yaml,examples/postgres-claim.yaml

To uninstall the provider & platform configuration:

kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-platform-ref-aws
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-aws
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io crossplane-contrib-provider-helm

Customize for your Organization

So far we have used the existing reference platform but haven't made any changes. Let's change this and customize the platform by ensuring the EKS Cluster is deployed to Frankfurt (eu-central-1) and that clusters are limited to 10 nodes.

For the following examples we are using my-org and my-platform:

ORG=my-org
PLATFORM=my-platform

Pre-Requisites

First you need to create a free Upbound account to push your custom platform. Afterwards you can log in:

up login --username=$ORG

Make the changes

To make your changes clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws.git $PLATFORM && cd $PLATFORM

In the EKS composition find the region definitions and change them from us-west-2 to eu-central-1. Also find the scalingConfig.maxSize and change it from 100 to 10.

Build and push your platform

To share your new platform you need to build and distribute this package.

To build the package use the up xpkg build command:

up xpkg build --name package.xpkg --package-root=package --examples-root=examples

Afterwards you can push it to the marketplace. Don't worry - it's private to you.

TAG=v0.1.0
up repo create ${PLATFORM}
up xpkg push ${ORG}/${PLATFORM}:${TAG} -f package/package.xpkg

You can now see your listing in the marketplace:

open https://marketplace.upbound.io/configurations/${ORG}/${PLATFORM}/${TAG}

Using your custom platform

Now to use your custom platform, you can follow the steps above. The only difference is that you need to specify a package-pull-secret, as the package is currently private:

up ctp pull-secret create personal-pull-secret

up ctp configuration install xpkg.upbound.io/${ORG}/${PLATFORM}:${TAG} --package-pull-secrets=personal-pull-secret

For the alternative declarative installation approach see the example Configuration manifest. Please update to your org, platform and tag before applying.

🎉 Congratulations. You have just built and installed your first custom Crossplane-powered platform!

Questions?

For any questions, thoughts and comments don't hesitate to reach out or drop by slack.crossplane.io, and say hi!