AWS provider

Install the AWS provider

Install the provider into the Kubernetes cluster with a Kubernetes configuration file.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: upbound-provider-aws
spec:
  package: xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/provider-aws:v0.27.0
EOF

The Crossplane Provider Custom Resource Definition tells Kubernetes how to connect to the provider.

Verify the provider installed with kubectl get providers.

kubectl get providers
NAME                   INSTALLED   HEALTHY   PACKAGE                                        AGE
upbound-provider-aws   True        True      xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/provider-aws:v0.27.0   12m

A provider installs their own Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). These CRDs allow you to create AWS resources directly inside Kubernetes.

You can view the new CRDs with kubectl get crds. Every CRD maps to a unique AWS service Crossplane can provision and manage.

Create a Kubernetes secret for AWS

The provider requires credentials to create and manage AWS resources. Providers use a Kubernetes Secret to connect the credentials to the provider.

First generate a Kubernetes Secret from your AWS key-pair and then configure the Provider to use it.

Generate an AWS key-pair file

For basic user authentication, use an AWS Access keys key-pair file.

Create a text file containing the AWS account aws_access_key_id and aws_secret_access_key.

[default]
aws_access_key_id = <aws_access_key>
aws_secret_access_key = <aws_secret_key>

Save this text file as aws-credentials.txt.

Create a Kubernetes secret with the AWS credentials

A Kubernetes generic secret has a name and contents. Use kubectl create secret to generate the secret object named aws-secret in the crossplane-system namespace. Use the --from-file= argument to set the value to the contents of the aws-credentials.txt file.

kubectl create secret \
generic aws-secret \
-n crossplane-system \
--from-file=creds=./aws-credentials.txt

View the secret with kubectl describe secret

kubectl describe secret aws-secret -n crossplane-system
Name:         aws-secret
Namespace:    crossplane-system
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>

Type:  Opaque

Data
====
creds:  114 bytes

Create a ProviderConfig

A ProviderConfig customizes the settings of the AWS Provider.

Apply the ProviderConfig with the command:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: aws.upbound.io/v1beta1
kind: ProviderConfig
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  credentials:
    source: Secret
    secretRef:
      namespace: crossplane-system
      name: aws-secret
      key: creds
EOF

This attaches the AWS credentials, saved as a Kubernetes secret, as a secretRef .

The spec.credentials.secretRef.name value is the name of the Kubernetes secret containing the AWS credentials in the spec.credentials.secretRef.namespace .