ekz is an opinionated Kubernetes distribution built using binaries from the AWS EKS Distro (EKS-D). It aims to be the easiest way to run EKS clusters on desktops (Linux, macOS and Windows).

What is EKS-D?

EKS-D provides the same software that has enabled tens of thousands of Kubernetes clusters on Amazon EKS.

ekz aims at solving the EKS compatibility problems for developers as much as possible by implanting EKS-D binaries to KinD and the k0s projects, so that we can easily spin EKS-compatible clusters up to test our Kubernetes applications.

The architecture of EKZ has been designed to support EKS-D in multiple implementations, called providers. Currently, we ship the k0s-based (EKZ provider), and KinD-based (KinD provider) implementations. A provider can be specified when creating a cluster, or via the EKZ_PROVIDER variable.

Here's EKS-D versions supported by EKZ.

ekz creates a cluster for you inside a Docker container on your laptop. You can start a cluster with or without using the CLI.

You could install the CLI with one the following options.

brew install ekz-io/tap/ekz

brew upgrade ekz-io/tap/ekz

curl -sSL https://bit.ly/install-ekz | bash

wget -qO- https://bit.ly/install-ekz | bash

scoop bucket add ekz-io https://github.com/ekz-io/scoop-ekz.git
scoop install ekz-io/ekz

choco install -y ekz

Then you can start your first EKS-D cluster using the following command:

ekz create cluster

You can also use the KinD provider, so that your EKS-D clusters will be KinD-compatible. To use the KinD provider, you can use either flag --provider=kind or export EKZ_PROVIDER=kind.

Here' the example of using the --provider=kind flag:

ekz create cluster --provider=kind

In case you'd like to use KinD as the default provider, it's better to set the EKZ_PROVIDER environment variable:

export EKZ_PROVIDER=kind
ekz create cluster

Please wait for a couple of minutes and an EKS-D cluster will be ready on your laptop.

❯ kubectl get nodes
NAME         STATUS   ROLES    AGE    VERSION
controller   Ready    <none>   87s    v1.21.2-eks-1-21-1

To use EKZ without using the CLI, please refer to this document.

1. EKS-D binaries
2. Packaged with the k0s skeleton
3. Base image: Amazon Linux 2
4. Enable network policy by default via Kube-Router (Calico is optional)
5. Bundled with a local storage class, and a load balancer

1. EKS-D binaries
2. Using KinD v0.11 as the skeleton
3. Packaged using KinD v1.18, v1.19, v1.20, v1.21 node images
4. Enable network policy by default via the Calico CNI
5. Bundled with a local storage class (from KinD), and a load balancer