Create a Node Class for Amazon EKS

Amazon EKS Node Classes provide granular control over the configuration of your EKS Auto Mode managed nodes. A Node Class defines infrastructure-level settings that apply to groups of nodes in your EKS cluster, including network configuration, storage settings, and resource tagging. This topic explains how to create and configure a Node Class to meet your specific operational requirements.

When you need to customize how EKS Auto Mode provisions and configures EC2 instances beyond the default settings, creating a Node Class gives you precise control over critical infrastructure parameters. For example, you can specify private subnet placement for enhanced security, configure instance ephemeral storage for performance-sensitive workloads, or apply custom tagging for cost allocation.

Create a Node Class

To create a Node Class, follow these steps:

You need kubectl installed and configured. For more information, see Set up to use Amazon EKS.

Basic Node Class Example

Here’s an example Node Class:

apiVersion: eks.amazonaws.com/v1
kind: NodeClass
metadata:
  name: private-compute
spec:
  ephemeralStorage:
    size: "160Gi"

This NodeClass increases the amount of ephemeral storage on the node.

Apply this configuration using:

kubectl apply -f nodeclass.yaml

Next, reference the Node Class in your Node Pool configuration. For more information, see Create a Node Pool for EKS Auto Mode.

Node Class Specification

apiVersion: eks.amazonaws.com/v1
kind: NodeClass
metadata:
  name: default
spec:

  # Required: IAM Role for Nodes
  role: "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/MyNodeRole"

  # Required: Subnet selection for node placement
  subnetSelectorTerms:
    - tags:
        Name: "<tag-name>"
        kubernetes.io/role/internal-elb: "1"
    # Alternative using direct subnet ID
    # - id: "subnet-0123456789abcdef0"

  # Required: Security group selection for nodes
  securityGroupSelectorTerms:
    - tags:
        Name: "eks-cluster-node-sg"
    # Alternative approaches:
    # - id: "sg-0123456789abcdef0"
    # - name: "eks-cluster-node-security-group"

  # Optional: Configure SNAT policy (defaults to Random)
  snatPolicy: Random  # or Disabled

  # Optional: Network policy configuration (defaults to DefaultAllow)
  networkPolicy: DefaultAllow  # or DefaultDeny

  # Optional: Network policy event logging (defaults to Disabled)
  networkPolicyEventLogs: Disabled  # or Enabled

  # Optional: Configure ephemeral storage (shown with default values)
  ephemeralStorage:
    size: "80Gi"    # Range: 1-59000Gi or 1-64000G or 1-58Ti or 1-64T
    iops: 3000      # Range: 3000-16000
    throughput: 125 # Range: 125-1000

  # Optional: Additional EC2 tags
  tags:
    Environment: "production"
    Team: "platform"

Considerations: