Install Kubernetes on Amazon Linux 2023 (Step-by-Step 2026)

Here is how to install Kubernetes on Amazon Linux 2023 using kubeadm in 2026.

Prerequisites

sudo swapoff -a
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/k8s.conf
overlay
br_netfilter
EOF
sudo modprobe overlay && sudo modprobe br_netfilter
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/k8s.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables  = 1
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 1
net.ipv4.ip_forward                 = 1
EOF
sudo sysctl --system

Install containerd

sudo dnf install -y containerd
containerd config default | sudo tee /etc/containerd/config.toml
sudo sed -i 's/SystemdCgroup = false/SystemdCgroup = true/' /etc/containerd/config.toml
sudo systemctl restart containerd && sudo systemctl enable containerd

Install kubeadm

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://pkgs.k8s.io/core:/stable:/v1.31/rpm/repodata/repomd.xml.key
EOF
sudo dnf install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
sudo systemctl enable --now kubelet

Initialize

sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=10.244.0.0/16
mkdir -p $HOME/.kube && sudo cp /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/flannel-io/flannel/releases/latest/download/kube-flannel.yml

Tip: For AWS, consider using EKS instead of self-managed kubeadm clusters.

Related Resources

• EKS vs GKE vs AKS
• Kubernetes Cheat Sheet
• Install K3s on Ubuntu