eksctl VS HomeBrew

There are a variety of ways in which you can create an Amazon EKS cluster. I prefer using eksctl CLI because of the convenience it offers. Creating an an EKS cluster using eksctl, can be as easy as this:

There are many ways to create a cluster such as using eksctl. In my case, I will use terraform module cause it’s easy to reuse and comprehend.

eksctl [eksctl] is the tool that can provision EKS cluster as well as supporting VPC network infrastructure.

For this and many other reasons I recommend doing everything in Terraform EXCEPT EKS and its node groups. For that, I use https://eksctl.io/ because it much better manages the lifecycle of EKS and your node groups. I have an blog article better explaining why I recommend it, and another blog article explaining how to do zero-downtime upgrades with EKSCTL.

eksctl

Second, make sure you create a spot instance group that attempts to launch MULTIPLE different instance types. This way if one instance type gets flushed, your autoscaler will kick in and launch a different type. Without this, you WILL HAVE DOWNTIME if a sudden price hike and flush occurs. If you're using eksctl I have example configurations that use multi-instance types on Github here.

There are a variety of ways in which you can create an Amazon EKS cluster. I prefer using eksctl CLI because of the convenience it offers. Creating an an EKS cluster using eksctl, can be as easy as this:

I've written an article on this, with my recommended tool for managing eks EKSCTL.

--- AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09' Parameters: VpcId: Type: AWS::EC2::VPC::Id Description: ID of the VPC in which to create the Kubernetes cluster SubnetIds: Type: List Description: List of Subnet IDs in which to create the Kubernetes cluster KeyPairName: Type: AWS::EC2::KeyPair::KeyName Description: Name of the EC2 Key Pair to use for SSH access to worker nodes ClusterName: Type: String Description: Name of the Kubernetes cluster to create Resources: ControlPlaneSecurityGroup: Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup Properties: VpcId: !Ref VpcId GroupDescription: Allow inbound traffic to the Kubernetes control plane SecurityGroupIngress: - IpProtocol: tcp FromPort: 22 ToPort: 22 CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0 WorkerNodeSecurityGroup: Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup Properties: VpcId: !Ref VpcId GroupDescription: Allow inbound traffic to Kubernetes worker nodes SecurityGroupIngress: - IpProtocol: tcp FromPort: 22 ToPort: 22 CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0 ControlPlaneInstanceProfile: Type: AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile Properties: Roles: - !Ref ControlPlaneRole ControlPlaneRole: Type: AWS::IAM::Role Properties: AssumeRolePolicyDocument: Version: '2012-10-17' Statement: - Effect: Allow Principal: Service: - ec2.amazonaws.com Action: - sts:AssumeRole ManagedPolicyArns: - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKSClusterPolicy - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonEKSServicePolicy ControlPlaneInstance: Type: AWS::EC2::Instance Properties: ImageId: ami-0b69ea66ff7391e80 InstanceType: t2.micro KeyName: !Ref KeyPairName NetworkInterfaces: - DeviceIndex: 0 AssociatePublicIpAddress: true GroupSet: - !Ref ControlPlaneSecurityGroup SubnetId: !Select [0, !Ref SubnetIds] IamInstanceProfile: !Ref ControlPlaneInstanceProfile UserData: Fn::Base64: !Sub | #!/bin/bash echo 'net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables=1' | tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf sysctl -p yum update -y amazon-linux-extras install docker -y service docker start usermod -a -G docker ec2-user curl -o /usr/local/bin/kubectl https://amazon-eks.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/1.21.2/2021-07-05/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kubectl echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin' >> /etc/bashrc curl --silent --location "https://github.com/weaveworks/eksctl/releases

Homebrew is a highly popular package manager on macOS and Linux systems, enabling users to easily install, update, and uninstall command-line tools and applications. Its design philosophy focuses on simplifying the software installation process on macOS, eliminating the need for manual downloads and compilations of software packages.

Homebrew - package manager for linux-based OSs.

Package Manager: Homebrew

Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix.

Are you using SQLite that ships with macOS, or SQLite installed from homebrew?

I had a different problem in the past with the SQLite that ships with macOS, and have been using SQLite from homebrew since.

So if it’s the one that comes with macOS that gives you this problem that you are having, try using SQLite from homebrew instead.

https://brew.sh/

Before we begin, make sure you have Homebrew installed on your Mac. Homebrew is a package manager that makes it easy to install software and dependencies. You can install Homebrew by following the instructions on their website: https://brew.sh/

I’m on MacOS and erlang.org, elixir-lang.org, and postgresql.org all suggest installation via Homebrew, which is a very popular package manager for MacOS.

I have always either installed Node from the installer provided by the Nodejs website or, via Brew in macOS. I have also used nvm in the past but did not know that there was a best practice to guide us.

A running Rails application needs a database to connect to. You may already have your database of choice installed, but if not, I recommend PostgreSQL, or Postgres for short. On a Mac, probably the easiest way to install it is with Posrgres.app. Another option, the one I prefer, is to use Homebrew. With Homebrew installed, this command will install PostgreSQL version 16 along with libpq:

On a macOS machine, you can use homebrew by running the command.