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Configure Karpenter for EKS Clusters

The Karpenter pack can be installed on Amazon EKS clusters for enhanced node provisioning.

Karpenter analyzes pending pods and launches the most efficient Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) capacity across instance types, sizes, Availability Zones, and more. As demand falls, it gracefully drains and removes underutilized nodes to reduce waste, whilst respecting any scheduling rules in place (labels, taints, and affinities).

Install the Karpenter Pack​

The following section outlines the prerequisites and steps to install the Karpenter pack on an existing EKS cluster managed by Palette.

Prerequisites​

  • An existing EKS cluster managed by Palette. Refer to Create and Manage EKS Cluster for guidance on creating an EKS cluster with Palette.

  • Your Palette account must have the Cluster Profile Editor and Cluster Editor permissions to install the Karpenter pack. Refer to our Cluster Profile and Cluster role reference guides for more information about roles and permissions.

  • An Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy must be created using the following JSON template. This policy grants Karpenter the necessary permissions to manage EC2 instances and interact with the EKS cluster. When following the Enablement Steps section, you will reference this policy when configuring the Karpenter controller role in the cluster profile. For the sake of simplicity, the policy is named karpenterControllerPolicy. If you choose a different name, ensure you reference that name in the Enablement Steps section.

    Replace the following placeholders in the policy template:

    • <aws-partition> - The AWS partition. This is usually aws for commercial regions, aws-cn for China regions, or aws-us-gov for GovCloud.
    • <aws-account-id> - Your AWS account ID.
    • <eks-cluster-name> - The name of your EKS cluster.
    • <aws-region> - The AWS region where your EKS cluster is located.

    Policy template
    {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Action": [
            "ssm:GetParameter",
            "ec2:DescribeImages",
            "ec2:RunInstances",
            "ec2:DescribeSubnets",
            "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
            "ec2:DescribeLaunchTemplates",
            "ec2:DescribeInstances",
            "ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
            "ec2:DescribeInstanceTypeOfferings",
            "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:CreateTags",
            "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:CreateFleet",
            "ec2:DescribeSpotPriceHistory",
            "pricing:GetProducts"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Sid": "Karpenter"
        },
        {
          "Action": "ec2:TerminateInstances",
          "Condition": {
            "StringLike": {
              "ec2:ResourceTag/karpenter.sh/nodepool": "*"
            }
          },
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Sid": "ConditionalEC2Termination"
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": "iam:PassRole",
          "Resource": "arn:<aws-partition>:iam::<aws-account-id>:role/KarpenterNodeRole-<eks-cluster-name>",
          "Sid": "PassNodeIAMRole"
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": "eks:DescribeCluster",
          "Resource": "arn:<aws-partition>:eks:<aws-region>:<aws-account-id>:cluster/<eks-cluster-name>",
          "Sid": "EKSClusterEndpointLookup"
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileCreationActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:CreateInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:RequestTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/<eks-cluster-name>": "owned",
              "aws:RequestTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "<aws-region>"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:RequestTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileTagActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:TagInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/<eks-cluster-name>": "owned",
              "aws:ResourceTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "<aws-region>",
              "aws:RequestTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/<eks-cluster-name>": "owned",
              "aws:RequestTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "<aws-region>"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*",
              "aws:RequestTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile", "iam:RemoveRoleFromInstanceProfile", "iam:DeleteInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/<eks-cluster-name>": "owned",
              "aws:ResourceTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "<aws-region>"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowInstanceProfileReadActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": "iam:GetInstanceProfile"
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowUnscopedInstanceProfileListAction",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": "iam:ListInstanceProfiles"
        }
      ]
    }
    Click to display an example policy with placeholders replaced 
    {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Action": [
            "ssm:GetParameter",
            "ec2:DescribeImages",
            "ec2:RunInstances",
            "ec2:DescribeSubnets",
            "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
            "ec2:DescribeLaunchTemplates",
            "ec2:DescribeInstances",
            "ec2:DescribeInstanceTypes",
            "ec2:DescribeInstanceTypeOfferings",
            "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:CreateTags",
            "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate",
            "ec2:CreateFleet",
            "ec2:DescribeSpotPriceHistory",
            "pricing:GetProducts"
          ],
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Sid": "Karpenter"
        },
        {
          "Action": "ec2:TerminateInstances",
          "Condition": {
            "StringLike": {
              "ec2:ResourceTag/karpenter.sh/nodepool": "*"
            }
          },
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Sid": "ConditionalEC2Termination"
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": "iam:PassRole",
          "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/my-eks-cluster-nodeRole",
          "Sid": "PassNodeIAMRole"
        },
        {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": "eks:DescribeCluster",
          "Resource": "arn:aws:eks:us-east-1:123456789012:cluster/my-eks-cluster",
          "Sid": "EKSClusterEndpointLookup"
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileCreationActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:CreateInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:RequestTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/my-eks-cluster": "owned",
              "aws:RequestTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "us-east-1"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:RequestTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileTagActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:TagInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/my-eks-cluster": "owned",
              "aws:ResourceTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "us-east-1",
              "aws:RequestTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/my-eks-cluster": "owned",
              "aws:RequestTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "us-east-1"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*",
              "aws:RequestTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowScopedInstanceProfileActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": ["iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile", "iam:RemoveRoleFromInstanceProfile", "iam:DeleteInstanceProfile"],
          "Condition": {
            "StringEquals": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/kubernetes.io/cluster/my-eks-cluster": "owned",
              "aws:ResourceTag/topology.kubernetes.io/region": "us-east-1"
            },
            "StringLike": {
              "aws:ResourceTag/karpenter.k8s.aws/ec2nodeclass": "*"
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowInstanceProfileReadActions",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": "iam:GetInstanceProfile"
        },
        {
          "Sid": "AllowUnscopedInstanceProfileListAction",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Resource": "*",
          "Action": "iam:ListInstanceProfiles"
        }
      ]
    }

  • The subnets and security groups associated with your EKS cluster must be tagged appropriately to allow Karpenter to discover and use them. The exception to this is the default cluster security group as Amazon EKS automatically removes any user-defined tags when the cluster is updated.

    Ensure the following tag is applied to both the subnets and security groups associated with the EKS cluster. Replace <eks-cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster.

    Key=karpenter.sh/discovery,Value=<eks-cluster-name>
    tip

    The Karpenter documentation provides an efficient method to tag the subnets and security groups using the AWS CLI. You can find this method in the Karpenter documentation.

    If using this method, note the following:

    • The command to tag the subnets uses the existing node groups in the cluster to identify the subnets. If your node groups are only assigned to use a subset of the cluster's subnets, you may need to manually tag any additional subnets not associated with the node groups.

    • If you are using a Z shell (ZSH), the final command to tag the security groups needs to be modified slightly. Change --resources "${SECURITY_GROUPS}" to --resources "${=SECURITY_GROUPS}" to ensure proper execution in ZSH. This is only required if you have more than one security group to tag.

Enablement Steps​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Profiles.

  3. Select the profile associated with your EKS cluster.

  4. Click on the version drop-down and select Create new version.

  5. Create a new version of the profile. For more information, refer to Version a Cluster Profile.

  6. Click on the Kubernetes layer to edit the configuration.

  7. In Pack Details, select the Values option.

  8. In the YAML editor, add an entry to the managedControlPlane.irsaRoles section for the Karpenter controller role. This entry references the IAM policy you created for the prerequisites. Replace <aws-partition> and <aws-account-id> with your AWS partition and account ID, respectively. If you named the policy something other than karpenterControllerPolicy, ensure you use that name in the ARN.

    Entry template
    managedControlPlane:
    ...
      irsaRoles:
      ...
      - name: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-karpenterControllerRole"
        policies:
          - arn:<aws-partition>:iam::<aws-account-id>:policy/karpenterControllerPolicy
        serviceAccount:
          name: karpenter
          namespace: karpenter
    Example entry
    managedControlPlane:
    ...
      irsaRoles:
      ...
      - name: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-karpenterControllerRole"
        policies:
          - arn:aws:iam::123456789012:policy/karpenterControllerPolicy
        serviceAccount:
          name: karpenter
          namespace: karpenter

    Palette automatically creates the IAM role named {{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-karpenterControllerRole (for example, my-eks-cluster-karpenterControllerRole) when the Karpenter pack is deployed to your cluster.

  9. In the YAML editor, add an entry to the managedControlPlane.iamAuthenticatorConfig.mapRoles and managedMachinePool.roleName sections for the IAM node role that will be used by Karpenter provisioned nodes. Replace <aws-partition>, <aws-account-id>, and <eks-cluster-name> with your AWS partition, account ID, and EKS cluster name, respectively.

    Entry template
    managedControlPlane:
    ...
      iamAuthenticatorConfig:
        mapRoles:
        ...
          - rolearn: arn:<aws-partition>:iam::<aws-account-id>:role/{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole"
            username: system:node:{{EC2PrivateDNSName}}
            groups:
            - system:bootstrappers
            - system:nodes
    ...
    managedMachinePool:
      roleName: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole"
    Example entry
    managedControlPlane:
    ...
      iamAuthenticatorConfig:
        mapRoles:
        ...
          - rolearn: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole
            username: system:node:{{EC2PrivateDNSName}}
            groups:
            - system:bootstrappers
            - system:nodes
    ...
    managedMachinePool:
      roleName: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole"

    Palette automatically creates the IAM role named {{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole (for example, my-eks-cluster-nodeRole) when the Karpenter pack is deployed to your cluster.

  10. Click Confirm Updates to save the changes to the Kubernetes layer.

  11. On the cluster profile page, click Add New Pack.

  12. Enter Karpenter in the search box and select the Karpenter pack from the list.

  13. In Pack Details, select the Values option.

  14. In the YAML editor, add your AWS Account ID to the awsAccountNumber field.

    Example entry
    awsAccountNumber: "123456789012"

  15. Click Confirm & Create.

  16. Click Save Changes to save the new profile version.

  17. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  18. Select the Profile tab.

  19. Click the version drop-down for the INFRASTRUCTURE LAYERS and select the new profile version you created. The Karpenter pack then appears under the ADDON LAYERS section.

  20. Click Review & Save, followed by Review changes in Editor in the pop-up window.

  21. Review the changes and click Update to apply the new profile version to your cluster.

    caution

    A Full cluster repave is required to apply the changes, which can affect cluster availability. Ensure you plan accordingly.

  22. Wait for the cluster repave to complete and the Karpenter pack to be deployed. This may take up to 10 minutes or more depending on the amount of worker nodes in your cluster.

Validate​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  3. On the Overview tab, check that the Cluster Status is Running without a loading icon and the Health shows Healthy.

  4. Verify that the Karpenter pack is listed under the Cluster Profiles section with a green circle indicating that it is successfully deployed.

Configure Karpenter NodePools​

The following steps show how to configure Karpenter NodePools for your Amazon EKS cluster. NodePools define provisioning constraints, while the associated NodeClass specifies cloud settings such as the Amazon Machine Image (AMI), subnets, and security groups.

These steps show you how to create a default NodePool, but you can create multiple NodePools to meet your specific requirements.

Prerequisites​

  • Your Palette account must have the Cluster Profile Editor and Cluster Editor permissions to configure Karpenter NodePools. Refer to our Cluster Profile and Cluster role reference guides for more information about roles and permissions.

Enablement Steps​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Profiles.

  3. Click Add Cluster Profile.

  4. Fill in the basic information for the new profile and ensure the Type is set to Add-on.

    The profile name should reflect its purpose, for example, karpenter-node-pool-my-eks-cluster.

  5. After you fill out the required information, click Next.

  6. Click Add Manifest.

  7. Provide a name for the manifest layer, such as karpenter-nodepool-layer.

  8. Click the New manifest option and provide a name for the manifest, such as karpenter-nodepool-manifest. Click the tick icon to save the name.

  9. In the YAML editor, add a Karpenter NodePool configuration. You can customize this configuration to meet your specific requirements. The Karpenter documentation provides comprehensive information on the various configuration options. Refer to the Karpenter NodePool examples for configuration samples covering a variety of use cases.

    In the following example, we create a NodePool named default that provisions on-demand instances of the c, m, and r instance series. The instance generation is set to greater than 2. The NodePool uses a NodeClass named al2023-20250920 that references the Amazon Linux 2023 AMI alias of al2023@v20250920.

    There are three important aspects to note in this configuration:

    • The spec.role field in the NodeClass must match the node role created in the Kubernetes layer under managedMachinePool.roleName. This ensures that the nodes provisioned by Karpenter have the correct IAM role associated with them.
    • The subnetSelectorTerms and securityGroupSelectorTerms in the NodeClass use tags to discover the subnets and security groups associated with the EKS cluster. Ensure these resources are tagged appropriately as outlined in the Prerequisites section for installing the Karpenter pack.
    • Some instance types will not be displayed in the Nodes tab for the cluster in Palette. Refer to Karpenter Support - Known Limitations for a list of unsupported instance types.

    Default NodePool example
    apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1
    kind: NodePool
    metadata:
      name: default
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          requirements:
            - key: kubernetes.io/arch
              operator: In
              values: ["amd64"]
            - key: kubernetes.io/os
              operator: In
              values: ["linux"]
            - key: karpenter.sh/capacity-type
              operator: In
              values: ["on-demand"]
            - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-category
              operator: In
              values: ["c", "m", "r"]
            - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation
              operator: Gt
              values: ["2"]
          nodeClassRef:
            group: karpenter.k8s.aws
            kind: EC2NodeClass
            name: al2023-20250920
      disruption:
        consolidationPolicy: WhenEmptyOrUnderutilized
        consolidateAfter: 1m
    ---
    apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1
    kind: EC2NodeClass
    metadata:
      name: al2023-20250920
      annotations:
        kubernetes.io/description: "General purpose EC2NodeClass for running Amazon Linux 2023@20250920 AMI nodes"
    spec:
      role: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}-nodeRole" # Must match the node role created in the Kubernetes layer under managedMachinePool.roleName.
      amiSelectorTerms:
        - alias: "al2023@v20250920"
      subnetSelectorTerms:
        - tags:
            karpenter.sh/discovery: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}"
      securityGroupSelectorTerms:
        - tags:
            karpenter.sh/discovery: "{{.spectro.system.cluster.name}}"

  10. Click Confirm & Create.

  11. Click Next, followed by Finish Configuration to create the new profile.

  12. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  13. Select the Profile tab.

  14. Click the plus icon next to ADDON LAYERS to add an add-on profile.

  15. Select the new add-on profile you created for the default Karpenter NodePool and click Confirm.

  16. Click Save to apply the NodePool configuration to your cluster.

Validate​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  3. In the Overview tab, verify that the Karpenter NodePool profile is listed under the Cluster Profiles section with a green circle indicating that it is successfully deployed.

Test Karpenter Node Provisioning​

To test Karpenter's ability to provision nodes based on workload demands, deploy a sample application and manually scale the number of replicas for the deployment. This creates pending pods that trigger Karpenter to provision new nodes, then gracefully drain and remove idle nodes when they are no longer needed.

Prerequisites​

Enablement Steps​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Profiles.

  3. Click Add Cluster Profile.

  4. Fill in the basic information for the new profile and ensure the Type is set to Add-on.

    The profile name should reflect its purpose, for example, karpenter-test-deployment-my-eks-cluster.

  5. After you fill out the required information, click Next

  6. Click Add Manifest.

  7. Provide a name for the manifest layer, such as karpenter-test-deployment-layer.

  8. Select the Enter layer values option and copy the following values into the YAML editor.

    Layer values
    pack:
      spectrocloud.com/install-priority: "0"
      namespace: inflate

  9. Click the New manifest option and provide a name for the manifest, such as karpenter-test-deployment. Click the tick icon to save the name.

  10. In the YAML editor, add a sample deployment configuration. This example creates a deployment named inflate with 0 replicas of the pause container.

    Sample deployment
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    metadata:
      name: inflate
    spec:
      replicas: 0
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          app: inflate
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: inflate
        spec:
          terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 0
          securityContext:
            runAsUser: 1000
            runAsGroup: 3000
            fsGroup: 2000
          containers:
            - name: inflate
              image: public.ecr.aws/eks-distro/kubernetes/pause:3.7
              resources:
                requests:
                  cpu: 1
              securityContext:
                allowPrivilegeEscalation: false

  11. Click Confirm & Create.

  12. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  13. Select the Profile tab.

  14. Click the plus icon next to ADDON LAYERS to add an add-on profile.

  15. Select the new add-on profile you created for the test deployment. Click Confirm once selected.

  16. Click Save to apply the test deployment to your cluster.

    Wait for the deployment to be applied. This may take a few minutes. Under the Cluster Profiles section in the Overview tab, the test deployment will have a green circle indicating that it is successfully deployed.

Validate​

  1. Open a terminal session and issue the following command to connect to your EKS cluster. Replace <eks-cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster and <aws-region> with the AWS region where your cluster is located.

    aws eks update-kubeconfig --name <eks-cluster-name> --region <aws-region>

  2. Issue the following command to scale the deployment to 10 replicas. The replica count of 10 was tested on an EKS cluster with two worker nodes of an instance type t3.xlarge in a single node group. You may need to increase or decrease the number of replicas depending on the current capacity of your cluster node groups.

    kubectl scale deployment inflate --namespace inflate --replicas 10
    Expected output
    deployment.apps/inflate scaled

  3. Monitor the Karpenter controller logs to observe the node provisioning activity. Issue the following command to display the logs.

    kubectl logs --follow --namespace karpenter --selector app.kubernetes.io/name=karpenter --container controller

    You can monitor log entries that indicate Karpenter is provisioning new nodes to accommodate the increased workload.

    Example Karpenter controller logs
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:03.613Z","logger":"controller","message":"found provisionable pod(s)","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"provisioner","namespace":"","name":"","reconcileID":"a47f6276-1e00-4315-aba5-faaddae6e59f","Pods":"inflate/inflate-5c5f75666d-gkvwm, inflate/inflate-5c5f75666d-vnglw, inflate/inflate-5c5f75666d-pxzxt, inflate/inflate-5c5f75666d-5gnpz, inflate/inflate-5c5f75666d-vtmcn","duration":"97.580831ms"}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:03.613Z","logger":"controller","message":"computed new nodeclaim(s) to fit pod(s)","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"provisioner","namespace":"","name":"","reconcileID":"a47f6276-1e00-4315-aba5-faaddae6e59f","nodeclaims":1,"pods":5}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:03.632Z","logger":"controller","message":"created nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"provisioner","namespace":"","name":"","reconcileID":"a47f6276-1e00-4315-aba5-faaddae6e59f","NodePool":{"name":"default"},"NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"requests":{"cpu":"5180m","memory":"120Mi","pods":"8"},"instance-types":"c3.2xlarge, c4.2xlarge, c5.2xlarge, c5.4xlarge, c5a.2xlarge and 55 other(s)"}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:06.354Z","logger":"controller","message":"launched nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"namespace":"","name":"default-c54z5","reconcileID":"09d9e180-2d05-42ea-a55e-ab7b4614d589","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-08d0c987a45fcdecd","instance-type":"c6a.2xlarge","zone":"us-east-1a","capacity-type":"on-demand","allocatable":{"cpu":"7910m","ephemeral-storage":"17Gi","memory":"14967996Ki","pods":"58","vpc.amazonaws.com/pod-eni":"38"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:30.894Z","logger":"controller","message":"registered nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"namespace":"","name":"default-c54z5","reconcileID":"77c703e0-391a-4368-a391-7166e0459493","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-08d0c987a45fcdecd","Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T16:57:43.744Z","logger":"controller","message":"initialized nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"namespace":"","name":"default-c54z5","reconcileID":"b0182dc3-a210-406e-8781-576ef5cb0e82","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-08d0c987a45fcdecd","Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"},"allocatable":{"cpu":"7910m","ephemeral-storage":"18181869946","hugepages-1Gi":"0","hugepages-2Mi":"0","memory":"14967996Ki","pods":"58"}}

  4. Back in Palette, select the Nodes tab for your EKS cluster. You can monitor new nodes being added to the cluster as Karpenter provisions them to accommodate the increased workload. You may need to refresh your browser to display the new nodes. The Karpenter-provisioned node pools will have the Managed by Karpenter banner.

    Alternatively, you can issue the following command in your terminal to display the nodes in your cluster.

    kubectl get nodes

    The output should be similar to the following, showing the nodes in your cluster, including those provisioned by Karpenter.

    NAME                          STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
    ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal   Ready    <none>   5m    v1.32.9-eks-113cf36
    ip-11-12-13-14.ec2.internal   Ready    <none>   13h   v1.32.9-eks-113cf36
    ip-12-13-14-15.ec2.internal   Ready    <none>   13h   v1.32.9-eks-113cf36

  5. Issue the following command to scale down the deployment to 0 replicas. This triggers Karpenter to terminate the nodes that were provisioned for the deployment.

    kubectl scale deployment inflate --namespace inflate --replicas 0
    Expected output
    deployment.apps/inflate scaled

  6. Monitor the Karpenter controller logs to observe the node termination activity.

    kubectl logs --follow --namespace karpenter --selector app.kubernetes.io/name=karpenter --container controller

    You can monitor log entries that indicate Karpenter is terminating nodes that are no longer needed and creating new nodes if necessary.

    Example Karpenter controller logs
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:25:47.232Z","logger":"controller","message":"disrupting node(s)","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"disruption","namespace":"","name":"","reconcileID":"0725c95c-43f8-40f7-b1db-c405b731ef06","command-id":"856c6beb-eb53-4ac3-ab3d-5b6760b3378f","reason":"underutilized","decision":"replace","disrupted-node-count":1,"replacement-node-count":1,"pod-count":1,"disrupted-nodes":[{"Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"},"NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"capacity-type":"on-demand","instance-type":"c6a.2xlarge"}],"replacement-nodes":[{"capacity-type":"on-demand","instance-types":"c7a.medium, m7a.medium, m3.medium, r7a.medium, c6a.large and 55 other(s)"}]}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:25:47.285Z","logger":"controller","message":"created nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"disruption","namespace":"","name":"","reconcileID":"0725c95c-43f8-40f7-b1db-c405b731ef06","NodePool":{"name":"default"},"NodeClaim":{"name":"default-nc2x2"},"requests":{"cpu":"280m","ephemeral-storage":"256Mi","memory":"220Mi","pods":"4"},"instance-types":"c3.large, c4.large, c5.large, c5.xlarge, c5a.large and 55 other(s)"}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:25:50.661Z","logger":"controller","message":"launched nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-nc2x2"},"namespace":"","name":"default-nc2x2","reconcileID":"cd1e21f8-8ddb-4f86-a173-e17fa9c1953d","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-0d1f6ea8255fa6496","instance-type":"c7a.medium","zone":"us-east-1a","capacity-type":"on-demand","allocatable":{"cpu":"940m","ephemeral-storage":"17Gi","memory":"1471060Ki","pods":"8","vpc.amazonaws.com/pod-eni":"4"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:26:11.794Z","logger":"controller","message":"registered nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-nc2x2"},"namespace":"","name":"default-nc2x2","reconcileID":"0f2e7c4f-d175-49ce-9816-b20dd9148d1f","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-0d1f6ea8255fa6496","Node":{"name":"ip-13-14-15-16.ec2.internal"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:26:25.483Z","logger":"controller","message":"initialized nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-nc2x2"},"namespace":"","name":"default-nc2x2","reconcileID":"39205e7b-082c-4bbe-870c-ea1c637f6ca0","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-0d1f6ea8255fa6496","Node":{"name":"ip-13-14-15-16.ec2.internal"},"allocatable":{"cpu":"940m","ephemeral-storage":"18181869946","hugepages-1Gi":"0","hugepages-2Mi":"0","memory":"1471060Ki","pods":"8"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:26:26.374Z","logger":"controller","message":"tainted node","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"node.termination","controllerGroup":"","controllerKind":"Node","Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"},"namespace":"","name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal","reconcileID":"7839593c-867f-4e54-9648-50805470c1ac","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"taint.Key":"karpenter.sh/disrupted","taint.Value":"","taint.Effect":"NoSchedule"}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:27:25.574Z","logger":"controller","message":"deleted node","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"node.termination","controllerGroup":"","controllerKind":"Node","Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"},"namespace":"","name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal","reconcileID":"09ebd74f-0806-4265-a8d6-ba3806073430","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"}}
    {"level":"INFO","time":"2025-10-08T17:27:25.838Z","logger":"controller","message":"deleted nodeclaim","commit":"4ff8cfe","controller":"nodeclaim.lifecycle","controllerGroup":"karpenter.sh","controllerKind":"NodeClaim","NodeClaim":{"name":"default-c54z5"},"namespace":"","name":"default-c54z5","reconcileID":"c033c44e-c1bb-4be8-99de-23c28b2419cd","provider-id":"aws:///us-east-1a/i-08d0c987a45fcdecd","Node":{"name":"ip-10-11-12-13.ec2.internal"}}

  7. Back in Palette, select the Nodes tab for your EKS cluster. You can monitor nodes being removed from the cluster or replaced with smaller instances as Karpenter scales down the node pool. You may need to refresh your browser to display the updated node list.

    Issue the following command to view the nodes in your cluster. Note that the nodes provisioned by Karpenter have been terminated and removed from the cluster.

    kubectl get nodes

    The output should be similar to the following, showing either the original nodes or new nodes if Karpenter replaced them with smaller instances.

    NAME                           STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
    ip-13-14-15-16.ec2.internal    Ready    <none>   7m41s   v1.32.9-eks-113cf36
    ip-11-12-13-14.ec2.internal    Ready    <none>   14h     v1.32.9-eks-113cf36
    ip-12-13-14-15.ec2.internal    Ready    <none>   14h     v1.32.9-eks-113cf36

(Optional) Set Node Affinity for Karpenter and Critical Workloads​

Karpenter recommends configuring Karpenter to run on existing EKS node groups by using a Node Affinity rule. This ensures Karpenter is not provisioned on nodes it manages.

Additionally, you may want to configure critical workloads (such as coredns and metrics-server) to run on the existing node groups to ensure they are not disrupted by Karpenter's consolidation and scaling activities.

caution

If a cluster repave occurs and the existing node groups are removed, you must update the Node Affinity rules to reference the new node groups. If this is not done, Karpenter and critical workloads will not be scheduled.

Prerequisites​

Enablement Steps​

  1. Issue the following command to connect to your EKS cluster. Replace <eks-cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster and <aws-region> with the AWS region where your cluster is located.

    aws eks update-kubeconfig --name <eks-cluster-name> --region <aws-region>

  2. Issue the following command to list node groups in your EKS cluster. Identify the node groups you want Karpenter and critical workloads to run on. Replace <eks-cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster.

    NODEGROUP=$(aws eks list-nodegroups --cluster-name "<eks-cluster-name>" --query 'nodegroups' --output text | tee /dev/tty)
    Example output
    new-worker--abcd        worker-pool-efgh

  3. Log in to Palette.

  4. From the left main menu, select Profiles.

  5. Select the profile associated with your EKS cluster.

  6. Create a new version of the profile. For more information, refer to Version a Cluster Profile.

  7. Click on the karpenter layer to edit the configuration.

  8. In Pack Details, select the Values option.

  9. In the YAML editor, add a nodeAffinity rule to the spec.template.spec section of the Karpenter deployment. This rule ensures that Karpenter is scheduled only on nodes that belong to the specified node groups. Replace <node-group-1> and <node-group-2> with the names of your node groups.

    Template for adding Node Affinity to Karpenter
    charts:
      ...
      karpenter:
        ...
        affinity:
          nodeAffinity:
            requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
              nodeSelectorTerms:
                - matchExpressions:
                    - key: karpenter.sh/nodepool
                      operator: DoesNotExist
                    - key: eks.amazonaws.com/nodegroup
                      operator: In
                      values:
                      - <node-group-1>
                      - <node-group-2>
    Click to display an example Node Affinity configuration for Karpenter 
    charts:
      ...
      karpenter:
        ...
        affinity:
          nodeAffinity:
            requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
              nodeSelectorTerms:
                - matchExpressions:
                    - key: karpenter.sh/nodepool
                      operator: DoesNotExist
                    - key: eks.amazonaws.com/nodegroup
                      operator: In
                      values:
                      - new-worker--abcd
                      - worker-pool-efgh

  10. Click Confirm Updates, followed by Save Changes in the cluster profile view.

  11. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  12. Select the Profile tab.

  13. Click the version drop-down for the INFRASTRUCTURE LAYERS or ADDON LAYERS and select the new profile version you created.

  14. Click Review & Save, followed by Review changes in Editor in the pop-up window.

  15. Click Apply Changes to update the cluster with the new profile version.

  16. You can also configure critical workloads to run on the existing node groups by adding a Node Affinity rule to their deployments. The following example shows how to add a Node Affinity rule to the CoreDNS deployment.

    caution

    Modifying critical workloads can affect cluster availability. Ensure you plan accordingly.

    Click to display example steps to add Node Affinity configuration for CoreDNS

    1. Issue the following command to connect to your EKS cluster. Replace <eks-cluster-name> with the name of your EKS cluster and <aws-region> with the AWS region where your cluster is located.

      aws eks update-kubeconfig --name <eks-cluster-name> --region <aws-region>

    2. Issue the following command to edit the deployment of your critical workload. In this example, we edit the kube-system/coredns deployment. Replace kube-system and coredns with the namespace and name of your critical workload deployment.

      kubectl edit deployment coredns --namespace kube-system

    3. In the editor, add a nodeAffinity rule to the spec.template.spec section of the deployment. This rule ensures that the workload is scheduled only on nodes that belong to the specified node groups. Replace <node-group-1> and <node-group-2> with the names of your node groups.

      Template for adding Node Affinity to critical workloads
      spec:
        ...
        template:
          ...
          spec:
            affinity:
              nodeAffinity:
                requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
                  nodeSelectorTerms:
                  - matchExpressions:
                    ...
                    - key: eks.amazonaws.com/nodegroup
                      operator: In
                      values:
                      - new-worker--abcd
                      - worker-pool-efgh

    4. Save and exit the editor to apply the changes.

      Expected output
      deployment.apps/coredns edited

Validate​

  1. Log in to Palette.

  2. From the left main menu, select Clusters and select your EKS cluster from the list.

  3. In the Overview tab, verify that the Cluster Status is Running without a loading icon and the Health shows Healthy.

  4. Verify that the Karpenter pack is listed under the Cluster Profiles section with a green circle indicating that it is successfully updated.

Resources​