Local EKS Development Skill

Set up local Kubernetes environment with EKS parity for fast development.

Use For

Local K8s with Kind matching EKS, LocalStack for AWS services
Local Keycloak instance, hot-reload development with Skaffold

Kind Cluster Configuration (EKS Parity)

kind-config.yaml - Matches EKS 1.28 behavior

kind: Cluster apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4 name: eks-local nodes:

role: control-plane kubeadmConfigPatches:
- | kind: InitConfiguration nodeRegistration: kubeletExtraArgs: node-labels: "ingress-ready=true" extraPortMappings:
- containerPort: 80 hostPort: 80 protocol: TCP
- containerPort: 443 hostPort: 443 protocol: TCP
- containerPort: 8080 # Keycloak hostPort: 8080 protocol: TCP
role: worker
role: worker networking: apiServerAddress: "127.0.0.1" apiServerPort: 6443 featureGates:

Match EKS feature gates

EphemeralContainers: true ServerSideApply: true containerdConfigPatches:

|- [plugins."io.containerd.grpc.v1.cri".registry.mirrors."localhost:5000"] endpoint = ["http://kind-registry:5000"]

Docker Compose for Local Stack

docker-compose.yaml

version: '3.8'

services:

LocalStack for AWS services

localstack: image: localstack/localstack:3.0 container_name: localstack ports: - "4566:4566" # LocalStack gateway - "4510-4559:4510-4559" # External services environment: - SERVICES=secretsmanager,ecr,iam,sts,ssm - DEBUG=1 - DATA_DIR=/var/lib/localstack/data - DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/run/docker.sock - AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-west-2 volumes: - localstack_data:/var/lib/localstack - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock networks: - eks-local

Local Keycloak

keycloak: image: quay.io/keycloak/keycloak:24.0.1 container_name: keycloak-local ports: - "8080:8080" environment: - KEYCLOAK_ADMIN=admin - KEYCLOAK_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin - KC_HTTP_RELATIVE_PATH=/ - KC_HEALTH_ENABLED=true command: start-dev --import-realm volumes: - ./keycloak/realm-export.json:/opt/keycloak/data/import/realm.json:ro networks: - eks-local healthcheck: test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8080/health"] interval: 10s timeout: 5s retries: 5

PostgreSQL for Keycloak (production parity)

postgres: image: postgres:15-alpine container_name: postgres-local environment: - POSTGRES_DB=keycloak - POSTGRES_USER=keycloak - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=keycloak volumes: - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data networks: - eks-local

Local Docker Registry

registry: image: registry:2 container_name: kind-registry ports: - "5000:5000" networks: - eks-local

volumes: localstack_data: postgres_data:

networks: eks-local: driver: bridge

Skaffold Configuration (Hot Reload)

skaffold.yaml

apiVersion: skaffold/v4beta7 kind: Config metadata: name: eks-local-dev

build: local: push: false artifacts: - image: localhost:5000/my-service context: . docker: dockerfile: Dockerfile sync: manual: - src: "src//*.ts" dest: /app/src - src: "src//*.js" dest: /app/src

deploy: helm: releases: - name: my-service chartPath: charts/my-service valuesFiles: - charts/my-service/values-local.yaml setValues: image.repository: localhost:5000/my-service image.tag: "{{.IMAGE_TAG}}" keycloak.url: "http://keycloak-local:8080" keycloak.realm: "local"

profiles:

name: debug activation:
- command: debug patches:
- op: add path: /deploy/helm/releases/0/setValues/debug value: "true"

portForward:

resourceType: service resourceName: my-service port: 3000 localPort: 3000
resourceType: service resourceName: keycloak port: 8080 localPort: 8080

Local Values Override

charts/my-service/values-local.yaml

replicaCount: 1

image: repository: localhost:5000/my-service pullPolicy: Never tag: "latest"

service: type: NodePort port: 3000

ingress: enabled: true className: nginx hosts: - host: my-service.localhost paths: - path: / pathType: Prefix

Local Keycloak config

keycloak: enabled: true url: "http://keycloak-local:8080" realm: "local" clientId: "my-service-client" clientSecret: "local-dev-secret"

LocalStack AWS config

aws: endpoint: "http://localstack:4566" region: "us-west-2" accessKeyId: "test" secretAccessKey: "test"

Disable production features locally

autoscaling: enabled: false

resources: limits: cpu: 500m memory: 512Mi requests: cpu: 100m memory: 128Mi

Enable debug logging

env:

name: LOG_LEVEL value: "debug"
name: NODE_ENV value: "development"

Setup Scripts

Initialize Local Environment

#!/bin/bash

scripts/dev-up.sh

set -e

echo "🚀 Starting local EKS development environment..."

Start Docker Compose services

echo "📦 Starting LocalStack and Keycloak..." docker-compose up -d

Wait for services

echo "⏳ Waiting for services to be ready..." until curl -s http://localhost:4566/_localstack/health | grep -q '"secretsmanager": "running"'; do sleep 2 done until curl -s http://localhost:8080/health | grep -q 'UP'; do sleep 2 done

Create Kind cluster if not exists

if ! kind get clusters | grep -q "eks-local"; then echo "🔧 Creating Kind cluster..." kind create cluster --config kind-config.yaml

Connect to local network

docker network connect eks-local eks-local-control-plane 2>/dev/null || true docker network connect eks-local eks-local-worker 2>/dev/null || true docker network connect eks-local eks-local-worker2 2>/dev/null || true fi

Install NGINX Ingress

echo "🌐 Installing NGINX Ingress..." kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/main/deploy/static/provider/kind/deploy.yaml kubectl wait --namespace ingress-nginx
--for=condition=ready pod
--selector=app.kubernetes.io/component=controller
--timeout=90s

Setup local secrets

echo "🔐 Setting up local secrets..." kubectl create namespace my-service 2>/dev/null || true kubectl create secret generic my-service-keycloak
--namespace my-service
--from-literal=client-secret=local-dev-secret
--dry-run=client -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -

Setup LocalStack secrets

aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566
secretsmanager create-secret
--name my-service/keycloak-client-secret
--secret-string "local-dev-secret" 2>/dev/null || true

echo "✅ Local environment ready!" echo "" echo "Services:" echo " - Kubernetes API: https://127.0.0.1:6443" echo " - Keycloak: http://localhost:8080 (admin/admin)" echo " - LocalStack: http://localhost:4566" echo " - Registry: http://localhost:5000" echo "" echo "Run 'skaffold dev' to start hot-reload development"

Teardown Environment

#!/bin/bash

scripts/dev-down.sh

set -e

echo "🛑 Stopping local EKS development environment..."

Stop Skaffold if running

pkill -f "skaffold dev" 2>/dev/null || true

Delete Kind cluster

if kind get clusters | grep -q "eks-local"; then echo "🗑️ Deleting Kind cluster..." kind delete cluster --name eks-local fi

Stop Docker Compose

echo "📦 Stopping Docker services..." docker-compose down -v

echo "✅ Local environment stopped"

Telepresence for Hybrid Development

Connect to remote EKS while running local code

telepresence connect

Intercept traffic to your service

telepresence intercept my-service
--namespace my-namespace
--port 3000:3000
--env-file my-service.env

Your local code now receives production traffic

npm run dev

Clean up

telepresence leave my-service telepresence quit

Local Keycloak Realm

{ "realm": "local", "enabled": true, "sslRequired": "none", "registrationAllowed": true, "users": [ { "username": "testuser", "email": "test@example.com", "enabled": true, "firstName": "Test", "lastName": "User", "credentials": [ { "type": "password", "value": "testpass", "temporary": false } ], "realmRoles": ["user"] }, { "username": "admin", "email": "admin@example.com", "enabled": true, "credentials": [ { "type": "password", "value": "adminpass", "temporary": false } ], "realmRoles": ["admin", "user"] } ], "clients": [ { "clientId": "my-service-client", "enabled": true, "clientAuthenticatorType": "client-secret", "secret": "local-dev-secret", "redirectUris": ["http://localhost:/", "http://my-service.localhost/"], "webOrigins": [""], "standardFlowEnabled": true, "directAccessGrantsEnabled": true, "serviceAccountsEnabled": true, "publicClient": false } ], "roles": { "realm": [ {"name": "admin"}, {"name": "user"} ] } }

Environment Parity Checklist

Feature EKS Production Kind Local

K8s Version 1.28 1.28 (configurable)

Ingress AWS ALB NGINX

Secrets Secrets Manager LocalStack

Registry ECR Local Registry

IAM IRSA Mocked

Keycloak Managed Docker

Database RDS Docker Postgres

Troubleshooting

Issue Solution

Kind cluster won't start Check Docker resources, restart Docker

LocalStack not responding Check container logs, verify ports

Keycloak login fails Verify realm import, check credentials

Image pull fails Ensure registry is connected to Kind network

Ingress not working Check NGINX controller is running

References

Kind Configuration
LocalStack AWS Services
Skaffold Documentation

local-eks-development

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