--- title: Use Amazon ECR Public and EKS-D to deploy LTS Docker Images description: Explore latest re:invent announcements from AWS in minutes with this lab. Install EKS-D with the EKS snap and run LTS container images on Amazon ECR Public. url: https://canonical.com/blog/use-amazon-ecr-public-and-eks-d-to-deploy-lts-docker-images?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Valentin Viennot](https://canonical.com/blog/author/valentinviennot "More about Valentin Viennot") 16 December 2020 # Use Amazon ECR Public and EKS-D to deploy LTS Docker Images [Amazon Web Services](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/amazon-web-services) [AWS](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/aws) [containers](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/containers) [docker](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/docker) [EKS](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/eks) [sc:snap:eks](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/scsnapeks) --- Share the article It’s re:invent season already, and we had exciting news to announce with Amazon this year. With all these remote sessions, what’s better than a quick lab to play with the new stuff? It’s starting to feel like Christmas already! We’re going to kill two birds with one stone (just an idiom, keep reading) and experiment with two of our latest announcements. First on the list is the “[Install Amazon EKS Distro anywhere](https://ubuntu.com/blog/install-amazon-eks-distro-anywhere)” with the EKS Snap, a frictionless way to try all the EKS-D experience in a snap. Second is the [LTS Docker Image Portfolio](https://ubuntu.com/blog/canonical-lts-docker-image-portfolio-on-amazon-ecr-public) of secure container images from Canonical, available on Amazon ECR Public. This blog will be a good starting point to try these new AWS services with open-source technology. ## Why opting for LTS Docker Images? “Who needs to run one container for ten – even five – years?” you may ask. And that would be a fair wonder. LTS [stands for](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS) “Long Term Support.” The Ubuntu distro made the acronym famous a few years ago, giving 5-year security updates [every two years](https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle), for free. Since then, Canonical also offered the Extended Security Maintenance (ESM), an additional five years of support. With the [LTS Docker Image Portfolio](https://ubuntu.com/security/docker-images), Canonical extends this 10-year commitment to some applications on top of Ubuntu container images. Why opting for LTS Docker Images, when agility runs the world? The reality is that enterprises, mainly where there are intricate software pieces, cannot keep up with the development pace. At particular locations, such as the edge of the network, or in some critical use cases, production workloads won’t receive new versions with potentially breaking changes and are limited to receiving security updates only. Recent publications showed that vulnerabilities in containers are a reality. Keeping up with the pace of upstream applications isn’t always possible ([this article](https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/malicious-or-vulnerable-docker-images-widespread-firm-says/d/d-id/1339576) from DarkReading takes image analysis on medical devices as an example). Canonical’s LTS images ensure your pipelines won’t break every two days, giving you time to develop at your pace and focus on your core features. ## Getting started Here I will show you how to create an Amazon EKS cluster on your computer or server, on which we will deploy a sample LTS NGINX docker image. You will need a machine that can run [snaps](https://snapcraft.io/) (Ubuntu already ships with it). Also, make sure you remove MicroK8s if you have installed it, because it would conflict with the EKS snap. I use [Multipass](https://multipass.run/docs/installing-on-linux) to get a clean Ubuntu VM; I recommend it for this Lab. Amazon EKS Distro (EKS-D) comes in a snap called “EKS” – its documentation is on [snapcraft.io/eks](https://snapcraft.io/eks). Let’s `snap install` it! At the time of writing, the EKS snap is available in the edge (development) channel and without strict confinement (classic). ``` sudo snap install eks --classic --edge ``` Once the EKS snap is installed, we will add our user to the “eks” group (to run commands without sudo), give them permissions on the kubelet config folder, reload the session (to make the changes effective) and create an alias (to make our lives easier). ``` sudo usermod -a -G eks $USER sudo chown -f -R $USER ~/.kube sudo su - $USER sudo snap alias eks.kubectl kubectl sudo eks status --wait-ready ``` You can already communicate with your cluster. Run `kubectl get node`, you will see information about your node running EKS-D: Hurray, you’ve successfully created a Kubernetes cluster using Amazon EKS Distro. 🎉 ## Deploy an LTS NGINX using EKS-D We will now deploy an NGINX server from Canonical’s maintained repository on Amazon ECR Public. Let’s use the [public.ecr.aws/lts/nginx:1.18-20.04\_beta](https://gallery.ecr.aws/lts/nginx) image. It guarantees a secure, fully maintained, no higher risk than beta, NGINX 1.18 server on top of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS image. First, use the following command to create an `index.html` that we will later fetch from a browser. ``` mkdir -p project cat <> ./project/index.html HW from EKS

Hello world, this is NGINX on my EKS cluster!

EOF ``` Then, create your deployment configuration, nginx-deployment.yml, with the following content. ``` # nginx-deployment.yml apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: nginx-deployment spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: nginx template: metadata: labels: app: nginx spec: containers: - name: nginx image: public.ecr.aws/lts/nginx:1.18-20.04_beta volumeMounts: - name: nginx-config-volume mountPath: /var/www/html/index.html subPath: index.html volumes: - name: nginx-config-volume configMap: name: nginx items: - key: nginx-site path: index.html ``` We’re telling EKS to create a deployment made of one pod with one container running NGINX and mapping our local index.html file through a configMap. Let’s first create the said configMap, and apply our deployment: ``` kubectl create configmap nginx --from-file=nginx-site=./project/index.html kubectl apply -f nginx-deployment.yml watch kubectl get pods ``` That’s it, you could let it run for ten years! Jokes aside, using an LTS image as part of your CI/CD pipeline means freeing your app from upstream changes, without compromising security, all thanks to containers. ## Expose and access your website Let’s edit our deployment to access our website while implementing a few best practices. ### Limit pod resources Malicious attacks are often the result of a combination of cluster misconfiguration and container vulnerabilities. This cocktail is never good. To prevent attackers from destroying your whole cluster by attacking only your NGINX pod, we’re going to set resource limits. Edit your `nginx-deployment.yml` file to add the following `resources` section: ``` # nginx-deployment.yml - skipped [...] some parts to save space [...] containers: - name: nginx [...] resources: requests: memory: "30Mi" cpu: "100m" limits: memory: "100Mi" cpu: "500m" [...] ``` Run one more `kubectl apply -f nginx-deployment.yml` to update your configuration. ### Create a service to expose Nginx Keep reading, we’re so close to the goal! Let’s make this web page reachable from outside the cluster. Create a `nginx-service.yml` file with the following content: ``` # nginx-service.yml apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: nginx-service spec: type: NodePort selector: app: nginx ports: - protocol: TCP port: 80 targetPort: 80 nodePort: 31080 name: nginx ``` One more `apply`, and voilà! ``` $ kubectl apply -f nginx-service.yml service/nginx-service created $ kubectl get services NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE nginx-service NodePort 10.152.183.242 80:31080/TCP 4s ``` Well done! Note: 192.168.64.15 is my Multipass VM – my EKS node – IP (look at the first screenshot!) ## What’s next? We installed Amazon EKS Distro, using the EKS snap. We then deployed an LTS NGINX server with EKS-D. All this on any machine where you can use snap… in other words, any Linux. The Amazon EKS anywhere experience has never been simpler! Next, you could use Juju to manage your applications on both public clouds and edge devices running MicroK8s or EKS-D. Or you could simply start by adding a few more pods to your cluster, using Canonical’s [LTS Docker Image Portfolio](https://gallery.ecr.aws/?searchTerm=lts%2F) from Amazon ECR Public. * * * * * ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### A look into Ubuntu Core 26: Cloud-powered edge computing with AWS IoT Greengrass and Azure IoT Edge](https://canonical.com/blog/ubuntu-core-26-cloud-integration) Welcome to this blog series which explores innovative uses of Ubuntu Core. Throughout this series, Canonical’s Engineers will show what you can build with this Core 26 release,... 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