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Version: v0.37 Stable
Supported Configurations
Running the control plane as a container with:

Integrate EKS Pod Identity with vCluster

This tutorial guides you through the process of integrating AWS Service Accounts with your vClustervClusterAn open-source software product that creates and manages clusters within Kubernetes infrastructure. vCluster provides tenant isolation capabilities while reducing infrastructure costs.Related: Cluster, Control plane cluster using Pod Identity.

Setting up Pod Identity requires you to link an AWS Service Account with the Kubernetes Service Account (KSA) used by your workloads. This KSA needs to be available in the Control Plane ClusterControl plane clusterThe Kubernetes cluster that hosts the virtualized control planes for clusters. The control plane cluster is operated by the platform provider and is completely invisible to tenants. There are no shared control plane nodes, no in-cluster agent pods, and no lateral path between tenant environments. With shared nodes, this cluster also runs tenant workloads alongside the control plane pods — the same node pool is used for both.Related: Cluster, Control plane cluster in which your vCluster instance runs.

To achieve this setup, use the sync.toHost feature to expose the KSA in the control plane cluster together with the platformThe PlatformThe vCluster Platform that provides management, access control, and operational features for clusters across multiple control plane clusters.Related: Project API to retrieve the updated name of the KSA in the control plane cluster.

Prerequisites​

This guide assumes you have the following prerequisites:

  • kubectl installed
  • aws CLI installed and configured
  • An existing EKS cluster with the CSI driver set up, IAM OIDC provider, and Pod Identity agent deployed

Step-by-step guide​

1. Start the platform and create an access key​

In order to integrate your workloads with EKS Pod Identity, you'll need a platform instance running. If you don't have one already, follow the platform installation guide.

Once you're done, you'll need to create a new access keyAccess KeyA secure credential in the platform that allows programmatic access to platform resources and API endpoints.Related: The Platform, User. This allows you to use the platform API. Follow this guide to create a new access key.

2. Set up variables​

Define the necessary environment variables for your EKS cluster, service accounts, and authentication details.

#!/bin/bash

# Set up environment variables
export AWS_REGION="eu-central-1"  # Replace with your AWS region
export CLUSTER_NAME="pod-identity-1"  # Replace with your EKS cluster name
export SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME="demo-sa"
export SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMESPACE="default"
export VCLUSTER_NAME="my-vcluster"
export HOST=https://your.loft.host  # Replace with your host
export ACCESS_KEY=abcd1234  # Replace with your access key
export AWS_ACCOUNT_ID=$(aws sts get-caller-identity --query Account --output text)

3. Create vCluster configuration​

Create the vcluster.yaml file with following content:

sync:
  toHost:
    serviceAccounts:
      enabled: true

4. Deploy vCluster​

All of the deployment options below have the following assumptions:

  • A vcluster.yaml is provided. Refer to the vcluster.yaml reference docs to explore all configuration options. This file is optional and can be removed from the examples.
  • The vCluster is called my-vcluster.
  • The vCluster is be deployed into the team-x namespace.

The vCluster CLI provides the most straightforward way to deploy and manage virtual clusters.

  1. Install the vCluster CLI:

    brew install loft-sh/tap/vcluster

    The binaries in the tap are signed using the Sigstore framework for enhanced security.

    Verify the CLI installed successfully.

    vcluster --version

    Output is similar to:

    vCluster version 0.x.x

  2. Deploy vCluster:

    Modify the following with your specific values to generate a copyable command:
    vcluster create my-vcluster --namespace team-x --values vcluster.yaml
    note

    After installation, vCluster automatically switches your Kubernetes context to the new virtual cluster. You can now run kubectl commands against the virtual cluster.

5. Connect to vCluster​

Establish a connection to your vCluster instance:

vcluster connect ${VCLUSTER_NAME}

6. Create example workload​

Create an example workload to list S3 buckets.

# Create example-workload.yaml content dynamically
cat <<EOF > example-workload.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: demo-sa
  namespace: default
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: s3-list-buckets
  namespace: default
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: s3-list-buckets
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: s3-list-buckets
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: demo-sa
      containers:
      - image: public.ecr.aws/aws-cli/aws-cli
        command:
          - "aws"
          - "s3"
          - "ls"
        name: aws-pod
EOF

kubectl apply -f example-workload.yaml

7. Read updated name from platform API​

vCluster rewrites the ServiceAccount name when it syncs the ServiceAccount to the control plane cluster. The synced name follows the pattern NAME-x-NAMESPACE-x-VCLUSTER_NAME. Cloud IAM trust policies must reference that synced name, not the name used inside the tenant cluster.

vCluster caps the rewritten name at 63 characters. This cap is vCluster's own, not a Kubernetes limit, since Kubernetes accepts ServiceAccount names up to 253 characters. When the rewritten name is longer, vCluster keeps its first 52 characters and appends - plus the first 10 characters of the hex-encoded SHA-256 digest of the full rewritten name. A trust policy built from the untruncated name doesn't match, and the failure surfaces as a permissions error rather than a naming error.

Resolve the name through the API

Don't hard-code synced ServiceAccount names or reimplement the truncation rule in your own automation. Query the vCluster Platform API as shown below so the name stays correct when namespace or tenant cluster names change.

This applies to ServiceAccounts that sync into the vCluster control plane's namespace, which is the default. If you enable namespace syncing and the ServiceAccount's namespace matches a mapping, vCluster keeps the name unchanged and the API returns a name that doesn't exist. In that case, reference the ServiceAccount by its original name in the mapped namespace on the control plane cluster.

Define a function to fetch the KSA name using curl and use it to export KSA_NAME environment variable.

# Define the function to get the KSA name using curl
get_ksa_name() {
  local vcluster_ksa_name=$1
  local vcluster_ksa_namespace=$2
  local vcluster_name=$3
  local host=$4
  local access_key=$5

  local resource_path="/kubernetes/management/apis/management.loft.sh/v1/translatevclusterresourcenames"
  local host_with_scheme=$([[ $host =~ ^(http|https):// ]] && echo "$host" || echo "https://$host")
  local sanitized_host="${host_with_scheme%/}"
  local full_url="${sanitized_host}${resource_path}"

  local response=$(curl -s -k -X POST "$full_url" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${access_key}" \
    -d @- <<EOF
{
  "spec": {
    "name": "${vcluster_ksa_name}",
    "namespace": "${vcluster_ksa_namespace}",
    "vclusterName": "${vcluster_name}"
  }
}
EOF
  )

  local status_name=$(echo "$response" | jq -r '.status.name')
  if [[ -z "$status_name" || "$status_name" == "null" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Unable to fetch KSA name from response: $response"
    exit 1
  fi
  echo "$status_name"
}

# Get the KSA name
export KSA_NAME=$(get_ksa_name "$SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME" "$SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAMESPACE" "$VCLUSTER_NAME" "$HOST" "$ACCESS_KEY")

8. Create IAM policy and role for Pod Identity​

Create IAM policy and role for pod identity.

cat >my-policy.json <<EOF
{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::*"
        }
    ]
}
EOF

aws iam create-policy --policy-name my-policy --policy-document file://my-policy.json

cat >trust-relationship.json <<EOF
{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "AllowEksAuthToAssumeRoleForPodIdentity",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "Service": "pods.eks.amazonaws.com"
            },
            "Action": [
                "sts:AssumeRole",
                "sts:TagSession"
            ]
        }
    ]
}
EOF

aws iam create-role --role-name my-role --assume-role-policy-document file://trust-relationship.json --description "my-role-description"

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name my-role --policy-arn=arn:aws:iam::${AWS_ACCOUNT_ID}:policy/my-policy

Create the pod identity association.

Namespace configuration

The namespace parameter depends on your vCluster deployment type:

  • vCluster (not using the platform): Use the namespace where vCluster is deployed
  • Platform-managed vCluster: The namespace follows the pattern loft-<project-name>-v-<vcluster-name>

For vCluster deployments not connected with the platform (i.e. deployed with vcluster create or Helm without the platform):

# Set the namespace where vCluster is deployed
export VCLUSTER_NAMESPACE="team-x"  # Replace with your actual namespace

aws eks create-pod-identity-association \
  --cluster-name ${CLUSTER_NAME} \
  --role-arn arn:aws:iam::${AWS_ACCOUNT_ID}:role/my-role \
  --namespace ${VCLUSTER_NAMESPACE} \
  --service-account ${KSA_NAME}

9. Verify the setup​

Verify the setup by checking the logs.

kubectl logs -l app=s3-list-buckets -n default