aws-cloudwatch-controller

packaged by Chainguard

Chainguard Container for aws-cloudwatch-controller

CloudWatch controller is an AWS Controllers for Kubernetes (ACK) service controller for Amazon CloudWatch dashboards, metric alarms, and metric streams.

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/aws-cloudwatch-controller:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Compatibility Notes

Chainguard's aws-cloudwatch-controller image is a minimal, Wolfi-based container image for the AWS Controllers for Kubernetes (ACK) service controller managing Amazon CloudWatch dashboards, metric alarms, and metric streams. It is comparable to the cloudwatch-controller image published by AWS in functionality: the controller binary is available at /bin/controller, the working directory is / so the Helm chart's relative ./bin/controller command resolves, and the image runs as the nonroot user 1000. The upstream image keeps the project's LICENSE and ATTRIBUTION.md next to the binary in /usr/bin, while this image ships them at the root of the filesystem.

Getting Started

The controller is deployed with the official ACK (AWS Controllers for Kubernetes) Helm chart, oci://public.ecr.aws/aws-controllers-k8s/cloudwatch-chart, published in the ACK registry within the Amazon ECR Public Gallery. Installing it creates the controller Deployment, the custom resource definitions, the service account, and the RBAC it needs.

The chart is released in lockstep with the controller, so each chart version deploys the controller of the same version. List the versions available with:

crane ls public.ecr.aws/aws-controllers-k8s/cloudwatch-chart

The controller exits at startup until it has AWS credentials, so give it an IAM identity before installing. On Amazon EKS, annotate the chart's service account with an IAM role that can manage CloudWatch, as described in the ACK guide to configuring IAM permissions. Outside EKS, set aws.credentials.secretName to a Secret holding an AWS shared credentials file instead. Create a values.yaml pointing the chart at this image and that role, replacing AWS_ACCOUNT_ID and IAM_ROLE_NAME with your own:

cat > values.yaml <<EOF
image:
  repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/aws-cloudwatch-controller
  tag: latest
aws:
  region: us-east-1
serviceAccount:
  annotations:
    eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/IAM_ROLE_NAME
EOF

Then install the chart:

aws ecr-public get-login-password --region us-east-1 | helm registry login --username AWS --password-stdin public.ecr.aws

helm install ack-cloudwatch-controller \
  oci://public.ecr.aws/aws-controllers-k8s/cloudwatch-chart \
  --namespace ack-system --create-namespace \
  --values values.yaml --wait

Confirm the controller came up and registered its custom resource definitions:

kubectl rollout status deployment -n ack-system -l app.kubernetes.io/name=cloudwatch-chart
kubectl get crd | grep cloudwatch.services.k8s.aws

Once running, the controller reconciles CloudWatch custom resources. The chart installs CRDs for three CloudWatch kinds: Dashboard, MetricAlarm, and MetricStream, alongside the two shared ACK kinds FieldExport and IAMRoleSelector. For example, to create an alarm that fires when one EC2 instance's average CPU utilization reaches 90% over five minutes, replacing INSTANCE_ID with the instance's ID:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: cloudwatch.services.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: MetricAlarm
metadata:
  name: high-cpu
  namespace: ack-system
spec:
  name: high-cpu
  alarmDescription: CPU utilization at or above 90% for 5 minutes
  namespace: AWS/EC2
  metricName: CPUUtilization
  dimensions:
    - name: InstanceId
      value: INSTANCE_ID
  statistic: Average
  period: 300
  evaluationPeriods: 1
  comparisonOperator: GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold
  threshold: 90
EOF

The controller writes the result back onto the resource, so a successful reconcile is visible in its status:

kubectl get metricalarm high-cpu -n ack-system \
  -o jsonpath='{.status.ackResourceMetadata.arn}'

An alarm that already exists in CloudWatch can be brought under the controller instead of recreated. Set services.k8s.aws/adoption-policy to adopt and name the alarm in the services.k8s.aws/adoption-fields annotation, and the controller reads the alarm and fills in the custom resource's spec from it:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: cloudwatch.services.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: MetricAlarm
metadata:
  name: existing-alarm
  namespace: ack-system
  annotations:
    services.k8s.aws/adoption-policy: adopt
    services.k8s.aws/adoption-fields: '{"name": "existing-alarm"}'
spec:
  name: existing-alarm
EOF

Dashboards and metric streams are adopted the same way, by dashboardName or name. Their custom resources must still set the other fields the CRD requires, dashboardBody for a dashboard and outputFormat for a metric stream.

Configuration

The chart's deletionPolicy decides what happens to the AWS resource when its custom resource is deleted. It defaults to delete, which removes the alarm, dashboard, or metric stream along with the Kubernetes object. Set it to retain when the Kubernetes objects are managed by a pipeline that may recreate or prune them, so that deleting a manifest cannot remove an alarm that an on-call rotation still depends on:

cat > values.yaml <<EOF
image:
  repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/aws-cloudwatch-controller
  tag: latest
aws:
  region: us-east-1
deletionPolicy: retain
leaderElection:
  enabled: true
  namespace: ack-system
serviceAccount:
  annotations:
    eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/IAM_ROLE_NAME
EOF

Apply it with the same chart. helm upgrade --install both creates the release and updates an existing one, so the same command works whether or not the controller is already deployed:

helm upgrade --install ack-cloudwatch-controller \
  oci://public.ecr.aws/aws-controllers-k8s/cloudwatch-chart \
  --namespace ack-system --create-namespace \
  --values values.yaml --wait

Under retain the controller clears its finalizer and leaves the AWS resource in place. A single resource can opt into the same behavior with the services.k8s.aws/deletion-policy: retain annotation, which takes precedence over the chart setting. leaderElection is worth enabling alongside it whenever the Deployment runs more than one replica, so only one controller reconciles at a time.

To see every value the chart accepts, including the resource-specific reconcile settings:

helm show values oci://public.ecr.aws/aws-controllers-k8s/cloudwatch-chart

Documentation and Resources

• AWS CloudWatch Controller GitHub project
• ACK controller installation with Helm
• ACK deletion policy documentation
• ACK features, including resource adoption
• AWS Controllers for Kubernetes documentation

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