EKS kubelet snap

EKS worker nodes run kubelet from the kubelet-eks snap. The snap channel is set based on the Kubernetes version corresponding to the EKS worker node image. For Kubernetes version X.Y the channel is set to X.Y.P/stable where P is the latest kubelet X.Y patch version supported by the image. For example, the latest supported version of kubelet is 1.28.2 for Kubernetes 1.28, as of this writing (23 Jan 2024). Therefore, the channel of the kubelet-eks snap in the latest image corresponding to the Kubernetes version is set to 1.28.2/stable.

Note that the latest channel track of the snap is unused.

See the official snap documentation for more information about the concept of channels and tracks.

Automatic snap updates

In EKS worker node images, automatic background updates of kubelet-eks, aws-cli, and all other installed snaps are disabled. To enable automatic background updates of all installed snaps run the following command in the worker node:

sudo snap refresh --unhold

To enable automatic background updates of only the kubelet-eks snap, run the following command in the worker node:

sudo snap refresh --unhold kubelet-eks

Updates of kubelet-eks snap shouldn’t affect running workloads, but Kubernetes API access for the node is expected to be unavailable for up to 30 seconds.