k3s on EC2

Deploy a single-node k3s Kubernetes cluster on AWS EC2 using OpenTofu and Ansible.

Prerequisites

• OpenTofu >= 1.6.0
• Ansible
• AWS CLI configured with credentials

Quick Start

# Initialize (creates AWS key pair, terraform.tfvars, and downloads providers)
make init

# Deploy the infrastructure and install k3s
make apply

# SSH into the instance
make ssh

# Fetch kubeconfig to use kubectl locally
make kubeconfig
export KUBECONFIG=./kubeconfig.yaml
kubectl get nodes

Make Targets

Target	Description
make init	Create key pair, copy tfvars, initialize OpenTofu
make plan	Preview infrastructure changes
make apply	Deploy infrastructure and install k3s
make destroy	Tear down all infrastructure
make ssh	SSH into the EC2 instance
make kubeconfig	Fetch kubeconfig and configure for remote access
make ansible	Re-run Ansible playbook manually
make keypair	Create AWS key pair only
make clean	Remove generated files (keeps key pair)
make clean-all	Remove everything including AWS key pair

Configuration

Edit terraform.tfvars after running make init:

aws_region       = "us-east-1"
instance_type    = "t3.medium"
key_name         = "k3s-cluster-key"
private_key_path = "./k3s-cluster-key.pem"
allowed_ssh_cidr = "0.0.0.0/0"  # Restrict to your IP for security
project_name     = "k3s-cluster"

Custom Key Name

make init KEY_NAME=my-custom-key

What Gets Created

• VPC with public subnet and internet gateway
• Security group (ports: 22, 80, 443, 6443)
• EC2 instance (Ubuntu 22.04, 30GB gp3 volume)
• k3s installed via Ansible

Cleanup

# Destroy infrastructure but keep key pair for reuse
make destroy
make clean

# Full cleanup including AWS key pair
make destroy
make clean-all