Linkerd is a lightweight service mesh that provides essential features for cloud-native applications, such as load balancing, service discovery, and observability. It is easy to deploy and manage, and it works seamlessly with Kubernetes.
Amazon EKS is a managed Kubernetes service that makes it easy to run Kubernetes applications on AWS. EKS provides a highly scalable and reliable Kubernetes environment, and it is integrated with other AWS services, such as S3 and DynamoDB.
Benefits of using Linkerd with EKS
There are many benefits to using Linkerd with EKS, including:
- Improved performance and reliability: Linkerd can improve the performance and reliability of your applications by providing features such as load balancing, service discovery, and circuit breaking.
- Increased security: Linkerd can help you to secure your applications by providing features such as mutual TLS authentication and encryption.
- Enhanced observability: Linkerd provides a variety of features that can help you to observe your applications, including metrics, tracing, and logs.
- Reduced overhead: Linkerd is a lightweight service mesh that has minimal impact on the performance of your applications.
To deploy Linkerd on an EKS cluster, you can use the following steps:
Install Linkerd
linkerd install
This will install the Linkerd CLI and deploy the Linkerd control plane to your cluster.
Configure Linkerd
Once Linkerd is installed, you need to configure it to work with your applications. To do this, you need to create a linkerd.yaml file. This file will specify which applications Linkerd should manage and how it should manage them.
For example, the following linkerd.yaml file will configure Linkerd to manage a WordPress application:
apiVersion: linkerd.io/v1alpha1
kind: ServiceMesh
metadata:
name: linkerd
spec:
httpPorts:
- 80
services:
- name: wordpress
namespace: wordpress
Inject Linkerd into your applications.
Once you have configured Linkerd, you need to inject it into your applications. To do this, you can use the linkerd inject command.
For example, the following command will inject Linkerd into the WordPress application:
linkerd inject deployment/wordpress
Verify that Linkerd is working
Once you have injected Linkerd into your applications, you can verify that it is working by running the following command:
linkerd check
This command will check that the Linkerd control plane is running and that all of your applications are meshed.
Multi-cluster Linkerd
Linkerd can also be used to connect multiple EKS clusters together. This can be useful for applications that need to communicate across multiple clusters.
To deploy Linkerd in a multi-cluster environment, you need to follow these steps:
Deploy Linkerd to each cluster
Use the steps above to deploy Linkerd to each cluster that you want to connect.
Configure Linkerd to connect the clusters.
On each cluster, you need to create a linkerd.yaml file that specifies the other clusters that you want to connect to.
For example, the following linkerd.yaml file will configure Linkerd to connect two clusters named cluster-1 and cluster-2:
apiVersion: linkerd.io/v1alpha1
kind: ServiceMesh
metadata:
name: linkerd
spec:
httpPorts:
- 80
multicluster:
clusters:
- name: cluster-1
gateway:
address: cluster-1.example.com
- name: cluster-2
gateway:
address: cluster-2.example.com
Restart the Linkerd control plane on each cluster.
Once you have updated the Linkerd configuration on each cluster, you need to restart the Linkerd control plane.
linkerd restart
Verify that Linkerd is working.
Once you have restarted the Linkerd control plane on each cluster, you can verify that Linkerd is working by running the following command on each cluster:
linkerd check
This command will check that the Linkerd control plane is running and that all of your applications are meshed.
Conclusion
Linkerd is a powerful service mesh that can provide a number of benefits for cloud-native applications running on EKS clusters. It is easy to deploy and manage, and it works seamlessly with Kubernetes.