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EKS Cluster Upgrade Process

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EKS Cluster Upgrade Process

Pre-upgrade Checklist

1. Review Kubernetes Changes

2. Check Addon Compatibility

# List addons and versions
aws eks describe-addon-versions \
  --kubernetes-version 1.30 \
  --addons-name aws-ebs-csi-driver
 
# Check VpcCni version
kubectl describe daemonset aws-node -n kube-system | grep Image

3. Update Addons First

# Update VPC CNI
aws eks update-addon \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --addon-name vpc-cni \
  --addon-version latest \
  --resolve-conflicts
 
# Update CoreDNS
kubectl rollout restart -n kube-system deployment/coredns
 
# Update kube-proxy
kubectl rollout restart -n kube-system deployment/kube-proxy

4. Review Applications

# Check for deprecated APIs
kubectl api-resources
kubectl get all -A -o yaml > pre-upgrade-backup.yaml

Upgrade Steps

1. Upgrade Control Plane

# Update cluster version
aws eks update-cluster-version \
  --name my-cluster \
  --kubernetes-version 1.30 \
  --profile my-profile
 
# Monitor upgrade status
aws eks describe-cluster \
  --name my-cluster \
  --query 'cluster.status'
 
# Wait for completion
aws eks wait cluster-active --name my-cluster

2. Upgrade Managed Node Groups

# Update each node group
aws eks update-nodegroup-version \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --nodegroup-name standard-workers \
  --kubernetes-version 1.30
 
# Or use eksctl
eksctl upgrade nodegroup \
  --cluster my-cluster \
  --name standard-workers \
  --kubernetes-version 1.30

3. Verify Upgrade

# Check cluster version
kubectl version --short
kubectl get nodes
 
# Check pod status
kubectl get pods -A | grep -v Running
 
# Verify addons
kubectl get pods -n kube-system

Post-upgrade Tasks

  1. Test applications - Verify workloads function correctly
  2. Update kubectl - Ensure local kubectl matches cluster version
  3. Update Helm charts - Update to latest chart versions
  4. Update CI/CD - Update kubectl versions in pipelines

Rollback

Node group can be rolled back to previous version if issues occur:

# Rollback node group
aws eks update-nodegroup-version \
  --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --nodegroup-name standard-workers \
  --kubernetes-version 1.29 \
  --force

Control plane cannot be rolled back.

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