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 offers APIs for setting up fully configured EKS clusters with secure networking, stateful cloud services (RDS) that can securely connect to the EKS clusters, an Observability Stack, and a GitOps System. All these components are built using cloud service tools from the Official Upbound AWS Provider. App deployments can securely access the necessary infrastructure through secrets distributed directly to the app namespace.

Overview

This reference platform outlines a specialized API for generating an EKS cluster (XCluster) that incorporates XRs from the specified configurations:

• upbound-configuration-app
• upbound-configuration-aws-database
• upbound-configuration-aws-eks
• upbound-configuration-aws-network
• upbound-configuration-gitops-flux
• upbound-configuration-observability-oss

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, XFlux, XOss);
	    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.

To intstall crossplane CLI follow https://docs.crossplane.io/latest/cli/#installing-the-cli

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 --set='args[0]=--enable-usages'

We will need Usages alpha feature for the correct deployment and eventual de-provisioning of this reference platform.

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:v1.2.0

Validate the install by inspecting the provider and configuration packages:

kubectl get configurations,configurationrevisions
kubectl get configurations --watch

After all Configurations are ready, you can check the status of associated Providers that were pulled as dependencies

kubectl get providers,providerrevision

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 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/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 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/cluster-claim.yaml

Create a custom defined database:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/mariadb-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 postgresql claim:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/postgres-claim.yaml

Now deploy the sample application:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/app-claim.yaml

NOTE: application has a strong dependency on mariadb type of the database

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

kubectl get claim,composite,managed

To get nice representation of the Claim deployment status you can use crossplane beta trace command. If you don't have crossplane CLI, see the installation instructions.

crossplane beta trace cluster.aws.platformref.upbound.io/platform-ref-aws

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

kubectl delete -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/cluster-claim.yaml,https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/mariadb-claim.yaml,https://raw.githubusercontent.com/upbound/platform-ref-aws/main/examples/app-claim.yaml

To uninstall the provider & platform configuration:

kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-platform-ref-aws
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-app
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-aws-database
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-aws-eks
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-aws-network
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-gitops-flux
kubectl delete configurations.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-configuration-observability-oss

kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io crossplane-contrib-provider-helm
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io crossplane-contrib-provider-kubernetes
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io grafana-provider-grafana
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-aws-ec2
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-aws-eks
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-aws-iam
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-aws-rds
kubectl delete providers.pkg.crossplane.io upbound-provider-family-aws

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

Make the changes

To make your changes clone this repository:

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

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=. --examples-root=examples --ignore=".github/workflows/*.yaml,.github/workflows/*.yml,examples/*.yaml,.work/uptest-datasource.yaml"

Afterwards you can push it to the marketplace. It will be not automatically listed but the OCI repository will be publicly accessible.

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

Using your custom platform

Now to use your custom platform, you can pull the Configuration package from your repository

up ctp configuration install xpkg.upbound.io/${ORG}/${PLATFORM}:${TAG}

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!