Canonical and AWS work together to make Ubuntu worker nodes available for Amazon's Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS). This fully-managed service makes it easy to use Kubernetes on AWS, without being an expert in managing Kubernetes clusters.

These images are based on the official Ubuntu Minimal LTS and include the custom Ubuntu-aws optimized kernel. They have been built specifically for the EKS service, therefore are not intended as general OS images.

You can also upgrade to Ubuntu Pro and activate additional security features such as FIPS mode, Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM), CIS or Disa STIG hardening and Kernel Livepatch.

To deploy Ubuntu worker nodes on EKS, you can use eksctl, EC2 Launch templates when creating the Node Groups on EKS console, Cloudformation templates and other mechanisms.

You can upgrade to Ubuntu Pro if you need to run your worker nodes on FIPS mode, with Kernel Livepach or with ESM content. Visit https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-negkygylqkp44?sr=0-1&ref_=beagle&applicationId=AWSMPContessa to learn more.