Delete a cluster - Amazon EKS
Delete cluster (eksctl)Delete cluster (AWS console)Delete cluster (AWS CLI)

Delete a cluster

When you’re done using an Amazon EKS cluster, you should delete the resources associated with it so that you don’t incur any unnecessary costs.

To remove a connected cluster, see Deregister a Kubernetes cluster from the Amazon EKS console

Important

  • If you have active services in your cluster that are associated with a load balancer, you must delete those services before deleting the cluster so that the load balancers are deleted properly. Otherwise, you can have orphaned resources in your VPC that prevent you from being able to delete the VPC.

  • If you receive an error because the cluster creator has been removed, see this article to resolve.

  • Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus resources are outside of the cluster lifecycle and need to be maintained independent of the cluster. When you delete your cluster, make sure to also delete any applicable scrapers to stop applicable costs. For more information, see Find and delete scrapers in the Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus User Guide.

You can delete a cluster with eksctl, the AWS Management Console, or the AWS CLI.

Delete cluster (eksctl)

This procedure requires eksctl version 0.194.0 or later. You can check your version with the following command:

eksctl version

For instructions on how to install or upgrade eksctl, see Installation in the eksctl documentation.

  1. List all services running in your cluster.

    kubectl get svc --all-namespaces

    1. Delete any services that have an associated EXTERNAL-IP value. These services are fronted by an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer, and you must delete them in Kubernetes to allow the load balancer and associated resources to be properly released.

      kubectl delete svc service-name

  2. Delete the cluster and its associated nodes with the following command, replacing prod with your cluster name.

    eksctl delete cluster --name prod

    Output:

    [ℹ]  using region region-code
[ℹ]  deleting EKS cluster "prod"
[ℹ]  will delete stack "eksctl-prod-nodegroup-standard-nodes"
[ℹ]  waiting for stack "eksctl-prod-nodegroup-standard-nodes" to get deleted
[ℹ]  will delete stack "eksctl-prod-cluster"
[✔]  the following EKS cluster resource(s) for "prod" will be deleted: cluster. If in doubt, check CloudFormation console

Delete cluster (AWS console)

  1. List all services running in your cluster.

    kubectl get svc --all-namespaces

  2. Delete any services that have an associated EXTERNAL-IP value. These services are fronted by an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer, and you must delete them in Kubernetes to allow the load balancer and associated resources to be properly released.

    kubectl delete svc service-name

  3. Delete all node groups and Fargate profiles.

    1. Open the Amazon EKS console.

    2. In the left navigation pane, choose Amazon EKS Clusters, and then in the tabbed list of clusters, choose the name of the cluster that you want to delete.

    3. Choose the Compute tab and choose a node group to delete. Choose Delete, enter the name of the node group, and then choose Delete. Delete all node groups in the cluster.

      Note

      The node groups listed are managed node groups only.

    4. Choose a Fargate Profile to delete, select Delete, enter the name of the profile, and then choose Delete. Delete all Fargate profiles in the cluster.

  4. Delete all self-managed node AWS CloudFormation stacks.

    1. Open the AWS CloudFormation console.

    2. Choose the node stack to delete, and then choose Delete.

    3. In the Delete stack confirmation dialog box, choose Delete stack. Delete all self-managed node stacks in the cluster.

  5. Delete the cluster.

    1. Open the Amazon EKS console.

    2. choose the cluster to delete and choose Delete.

    3. On the delete cluster confirmation screen, choose Delete.

  6. (Optional) Delete the VPC AWS CloudFormation stack.

    1. Open the AWS CloudFormation console.

    2. Select the VPC stack to delete, and then choose Delete.

    3. In the Delete stack confirmation dialog box, choose Delete stack.

Delete cluster (AWS CLI)

  1. List all services running in your cluster.

    kubectl get svc --all-namespaces

  2. Delete any services that have an associated EXTERNAL-IP value. These services are fronted by an Elastic Load Balancing load balancer, and you must delete them in Kubernetes to allow the load balancer and associated resources to be properly released.

    kubectl delete svc service-name

  3. Delete all node groups and Fargate profiles.

    1. List the node groups in your cluster with the following command.

      aws eks list-nodegroups --cluster-name my-cluster
      Note

      The node groups listed are managed node groups only.

    2. Delete each node group with the following command. Delete all node groups in the cluster.

      aws eks delete-nodegroup --nodegroup-name my-nodegroup --cluster-name my-cluster

    3. List the Fargate profiles in your cluster with the following command.

      aws eks list-fargate-profiles --cluster-name my-cluster

    4. Delete each Fargate profile with the following command. Delete all Fargate profiles in the cluster.

      aws eks delete-fargate-profile --fargate-profile-name my-fargate-profile --cluster-name my-cluster

  4. Delete all self-managed node AWS CloudFormation stacks.

    1. List your available AWS CloudFormation stacks with the following command. Find the node template name in the resulting output.

      aws cloudformation list-stacks --query "StackSummaries[].StackName"

    2. Delete each node stack with the following command, replacing node-stack with your node stack name. Delete all self-managed node stacks in the cluster.

      aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name node-stack

  5. Delete the cluster with the following command, replacing my-cluster with your cluster name.

    aws eks delete-cluster --name my-cluster

  6. (Optional) Delete the VPC AWS CloudFormation stack.

    1. List your available AWS CloudFormation stacks with the following command. Find the VPC template name in the resulting output.

      aws cloudformation list-stacks --query "StackSummaries[].StackName"

    2. Delete the VPC stack with the following command, replacing my-vpc-stack with your VPC stack name.

      aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name my-vpc-stack