Hey people, this is not a complete solution article, but rather a cut story and a probable solution for the below problem statement when it comes to locked out issue in EKS cluster:

I wanted to add a user to my EKS, hence while adding the user to aws-auth configmap of my EKS cluster, I made some syntax mistakes and now neither I nor anyone can login to EKS cluster" whole cluster is gone, help me please !!!

Straight forward solution which I found out :

Find out who created the EKS cluster ( owner) and ask them to edit the aws-auth configmap to correct your mistakes.

The user who created the cluster is the root user for entity. Hence regardless of aws-auth configmap mess, he/she can login via kubectl anytime.

Read more here on solution by AWS.

I wrote this because I made this mistake in my company and spent hours searching for answer before finding this info.

Once I found out the creator, she corrected it in 1 min. :D

Long term solution :

You might be saying ’ Thats one solution to save my job, how do I make sure I dont do this mistake again ?'

Alright, so here’s what you can follow from next time :

  • First get the configmap yaml file by typing :

kubectl get configmap aws-auth -n kube-system -o yaml > aws-auth-configmap.yml

  • Once you get the yaml file, edit the file using your favorite text editor and update your changes.

  • Now, update the configmap with your new updated file by typing :

kubectl apply -n kube-system -f aws-auth-configmap.yml

Remember, live editing is never a good option !!!