Simplify network connectivity using Tailscale with Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes

Simplify network connectivity using Tailscale with Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes Prerequisites Cost and security Architecture overview Step 1: Define a remote pod, and node network Step 2: Install Tailscale on your EKS Hybrid Node Step 3: Add a Tailscale subnet router inside your Amazon VPC Step 4: Update subnet routes in the Amazon VPC Step 5: Verify connectivity between the two Tailscale devices AWS CloudShell connectivity test: Step 6: Instructions for EKS Hybrid Nodes Cleaning up Conclusion Next steps About the authors This post was co-authored with Lee Briggs, Director of Solutions Engineering at Tailscale. In this post, we guide you through integrating Tailscale with your Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Hybrid Nodes environment. Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes is a feature of Amazon EKS that enables you to streamline your Kubernetes management by connecting on-premises and edge infrastructure to an EKS cluster running in Amazon Web Services (AWS). This unified approach allows AWS to manage the Kubernetes control plane in the cloud while you maintain your hybrid nodes in on-premises or edge locations. We demonstrate how to configure a remote pod network and node address space. Install Tailscale on your hybrid nodes, set up a subnet router within your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) , and update your AWS routes accordingly. This integration provides direct, encrypted connections that streamline the network architecture needed for EKS Hybrid Nodes. Although EKS Hybrid Nodes streamlines the Kubernetes management challenge, network connectivity between your on-premises infrastructure and AWS remains a critical requirement. Tailscale can help streamline this network connectivity between your EKS Hybrid Nodes data plane and Amazon EKS Kubernetes control plane. Unlike traditional VPNs, which tunnel all network traffic through a central gateway server, Tailscale creates a peer-to-peer mesh network (known as a tailnet ). It enables encrypted point-to-point connections using the open source WireGuard protocol, connecting devices and services across different networks with enhanced security features. However, you can still use Tailscale like a traditional VPN.