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📖 Document EKS cross-account role assumption with IRSA - #6188

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lmilbaum:eks-cross-account-irsa-docs
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📖 Document EKS cross-account role assumption with IRSA#6188
lmilbaum wants to merge 1 commit into
kubernetes-sigs:mainfrom
lmilbaum:eks-cross-account-irsa-docs

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@lmilbaum

@lmilbaum lmilbaum commented Aug 19, 2026

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What type of PR is this?

/kind documentation

What this PR does / why we need it:

  • Existing multitenancy documentation was outdated and difficult to discover.
  • This adds an EKS guide for IRSA-based cross-account role assumption.
  • It documents the IAM trust chain, CAPA identities, and AWSManagedControlPlane.identityRef.

Which issue(s) this PR fixes (optional, in fixes #<issue number>(, fixes #<issue_number>, ...) format, will close the issue(s) when PR gets merged):
Fixes #2105

Special notes for your reviewer:
In response to the review feedback asking for validation of the documented workflow, I added a local test that validates the parts of the documentation we can verify without access to AWS accounts.

The test validates that:

  • The documented CAPA configuration is consistent with the current CAPA API types.
  • The referenced fields and identity configuration are valid and represented in the CAPA manifests.
  • The management-account and workload-account configuration described in the guide remains internally consistent with the implementation.
  • Changes to CAPA APIs or manifests that make the documented configuration stale or invalid can be detected locally.

The test is intentionally self-contained and requires no AWS credentials or AWS accounts, so it can run locally and in CI without provisioning cloud resources.

There is an important limitation: this test validates the documentation contract against the CAPA codebase, not the actual AWS behavior. It does not prove that cross-account IAM role assumption or IRSA works end to end between two real AWS accounts.

Full validation of the cross-account IAM/IRSA flow still requires testing the documented procedure against real AWS infrastructure.

AI Usage:

Codex

Checklist:

  • squashed commits
  • includes documentation
  • includes AI generated content
  • includes emoji in title
  • adds unit tests
  • adds or updates e2e tests

Release note:

Added EKS documentation for cross-account role assumption using IRSA. There is no user action required. And the link to the new guild is - docs/book/src/topics/eks/cross-account-role-assumption.md

@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added do-not-merge/work-in-progress Indicates that a PR should not merge because it is a work in progress. do-not-merge/release-note-label-needed Indicates that a PR should not merge because it's missing one of the release note labels. labels Aug 19, 2026
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kubernetes-prow Bot requested a review from dlipovetsky August 19, 2026 05:32
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[APPROVALNOTIFIER] This PR is NOT APPROVED

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linux-foundation-easycla Bot commented Aug 19, 2026

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CLA Signed
The committers listed above are authorized under a signed CLA.

  • ✅ login: lmilbaum / name: Liora Milbaum (de21d4a)

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kubernetes-prow Bot requested a review from faiq August 19, 2026 05:32
@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added needs-priority cncf-cla: no Indicates the PR's author has not signed the CNCF CLA. labels Aug 19, 2026
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Welcome @lmilbaum!

It looks like this is your first PR to kubernetes-sigs/cluster-api-provider-aws 🎉. Please refer to our pull request process documentation to help your PR have a smooth ride to approval.

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@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added size/L Denotes a PR that changes 100-499 lines, ignoring generated files. needs-ok-to-test Indicates a PR that requires an org member to verify it is safe to test. labels Aug 19, 2026
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Hi @lmilbaum. Thanks for your PR.

I'm waiting for a kubernetes-sigs member to verify that this patch is reasonable to test. If it is, they should reply with /ok-to-test on its own line. Until that is done, I will not automatically test new commits in this PR, but the usual testing commands by org members will still work.

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@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added cncf-cla: yes Indicates the PR's author has signed the CNCF CLA. and removed cncf-cla: no Indicates the PR's author has not signed the CNCF CLA. labels Aug 19, 2026
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/label release-note-none

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@lmilbaum: The label(s) /label release-note-none cannot be applied. These labels are supported: api-review, tide/merge-method-merge, tide/merge-method-rebase, tide/merge-method-squash, team/katacoda, refactor, ci-short, ci-extended, ci-full. Is this label configured under labels -> additional_labels or labels -> restricted_labels in plugin.yaml?

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@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added release-note-action-required Denotes a PR that introduces potentially breaking changes that require user action. and removed do-not-merge/release-note-label-needed Indicates that a PR should not merge because it's missing one of the release note labels. labels Aug 19, 2026
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/label hold

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@lmilbaum: The label(s) /label hold cannot be applied. These labels are supported: api-review, tide/merge-method-merge, tide/merge-method-rebase, tide/merge-method-squash, team/katacoda, refactor, ci-short, ci-extended, ci-full. Is this label configured under labels -> additional_labels or labels -> restricted_labels in plugin.yaml?

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@lmilbaum
lmilbaum marked this pull request as ready for review August 20, 2026 04:51
@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot removed the do-not-merge/work-in-progress Indicates that a PR should not merge because it is a work in progress. label Aug 20, 2026
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kubernetes-prow Bot requested review from nrb and richardcase August 20, 2026 04:51
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/ok-to-test

@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added ok-to-test Indicates a non-member PR verified by an org member that is safe to test. and removed needs-ok-to-test Indicates a PR that requires an org member to verify it is safe to test. labels Aug 21, 2026

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I think this looks good @lmilbaum .

I'm off on holiday tomorrow so i won't be able to test it until September. If we could get someone to follow the instructions and confirm they work that would be great.

Comment thread docs/book/src/topics/eks/cross-account-role-assumption.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/book/src/topics/eks/cross-account-role-assumption.md
Co-authored-by: Richard Case <richmcase@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Liora Milbaum <lmilbaum@gmail.com>
@lmilbaum
lmilbaum force-pushed the eks-cross-account-irsa-docs branch from ff2b611 to a34ef3e Compare August 23, 2026 11:46
@kubernetes-prow kubernetes-prow Bot added size/XL Denotes a PR that changes 500-999 lines, ignoring generated files. and removed size/L Denotes a PR that changes 100-499 lines, ignoring generated files. labels Aug 23, 2026
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[docs] Update cross-account role assumption documentation with IRSA

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