jupyter-deploy-tf-aws-eks-oidc 0.1.0

OIDC terraform template to deploy JupyterLab workspaces on AWS EKS with GitHub authentication.

Jupyter Deploy AWS EKS OIDC template

The AWS EKS OIDC Template deploys JupyterLab workspaces on an Amazon EKS cluster, with HTTPS, GitHub OAuth via Dex, and the Jupyter K8s operator for workspace lifecycle management.

Multiple users get isolated workspaces with persistent storage, idle shutdown, and role-based access control — all managed through jupyter-deploy.

Documentation: jupyter-deploy.readthedocs.io

The AWS EKS OIDC Template is maintained and supported by AWS.

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When a user navigates to the deployment URL, they authenticate via GitHub through a Dex OIDC flow. Once authenticated, the Jupyter K8s operator provisions a workspace pod on the cluster with a dedicated persistent volume. Traefik routes HTTPS traffic to the workspace, and an authmiddleware component validates JWT session cookies on every request.

Administrators use jupyter-deploy to monitor cluster health, manage workspaces, and inspect platform components — without needing direct Kubernetes access.

Prerequisites

AWS account

The template creates AWS resources (VPC, EKS cluster, node groups, IAM roles, ECR, Route 53 records). Your local environment needs access to valid AWS credentials.

If you do not have an AWS account, follow the official guide to create one.

If you already have an AWS account, make sure your CLI credentials are configured.

Get and register a domain

The template serves workspace URLs under a subdomain of your own domain. You will need to specify this domain when you configure the project.

If you already own a domain, register it with Amazon Route 53 using this guide.

If you do not own a domain yet, you can buy one through Amazon Route 53 using this guide.

Setup a GitHub OAuth app

The template gates access to workspaces with GitHub identities via Dex as the OIDC provider. You will need to create a GitHub OAuth app for this purpose.

First, log on to GitHub on your web browser, then use this link to create a new OAuth app.

You can choose any name for the application; for example jupyter-deploy-eks-oidc.

Set Homepage URL to: https://<subdomain>.<domain>; for example https://workspaces.example.com. <domain> corresponds to the domain above. You can choose any <subdomain> you like, but it must be a valid domain part (lowercase letters, digits, or hyphens).

Set Authorization callback URL to: https://<subdomain>.<domain>/dex/callback. Make sure it matches the <domain> and <subdomain> exactly.

Note: Make sure the callback URL ends in /dex/callback

In the next page, write down and save your app client ID. Generate an app client secret, and write it down as well.

The oauth_allowed_teams variable grants access to GitHub teams, in org:team format. To grant an organization's teams access, create the OAuth app under that organization (Settings → Developer settings → OAuth Apps) so its owners can manage the app and the app can read team membership. See Prerequisites for details.

Refer to GitHub documentation for more details.

Usage

Installation

Recommended: create or activate a Python virtual environment.

uv add "jupyter-deploy[aws,k8s]" jupyter-deploy-tf-aws-eks-oidc

Or with pip:

pip install "jupyter-deploy[aws,k8s]" jupyter-deploy-tf-aws-eks-oidc

Project setup

mkdir my-eks-deployment
cd my-eks-deployment

jd init . -E terraform -P aws -I eks -T oidc

Consider making my-eks-deployment a git repository.

Configure and deploy

jd config
jd up

The first deployment takes approximately 25-30 minutes.

User interface

# open the web UI
jd open

# configure kubectl to access your cluster
jd cluster login

Manage user workspaces

# list all workspaces
jd server list

# check workspace status
jd server status --name my-workspace --scope default

# open a running workspace in your web browser
jd open --server-name my-workspace --scope default

# stop/start a workspace
jd server stop --name my-workspace --scope default
jd server start --name my-workspace --scope default

# view workspace logs
jd server logs --name my-workspace --scope default

# open an interactive shell
jd server connect --name my-workspace --scope default

Manage cluster

# aggregated health check
jd health

# cluster control plane status
jd cluster status

# configure local kubeconfig
jd cluster login

Manage components

# health dashboard for all platform components
jd health --components

# list the platform components
jd component list

# view component logs
jd component logs --name dex

# restart a component (deployment only)
jd component restart --name oauth2-proxy

Take down

This operation removes all the resources associated with this project in your AWS account.

jd down

Architecture

Cluster and networking

The template creates a VPC with public and private subnets across two availability zones. EKS nodes run in private subnets; the Network Load Balancer (NLB) sits in public subnets and forwards TCP/443 to Traefik pods. Amazon Route 53 manages DNS via external-dns, and cert-manager handles TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt.

Platform components

The platform layer handles routing, authentication, and workspace lifecycle:

• Traefik — Ingress controller and reverse proxy
• Dex — OIDC identity provider (federates to GitHub)
• OAuth2 Proxy — Handles sign-in flow for unauthenticated users
• Authmiddleware — Validates JWT session cookies via ForwardAuth
• Jupyter K8s operator — Reconciles Workspace CRDs into Deployments and persistent volumes

Authentication flow

Authentication uses a two-path model:

Browser access — Unauthenticated requests are redirected through OAuth2 Proxy → Dex → GitHub. After authentication, Authmiddleware issues a JWT session cookie. Authmiddleware validates subsequent requests by checking the JWT directly.

CLI access — jd cluster login configures kubeconfig with an EKS exec-based auth provider using AWS IAM credentials, bypassing the OIDC flow entirely.

Compute

Role-based managed node groups with jupyter-deploy/role Kubernetes labels:

• components — Platform infrastructure pods (operator, router, cert-manager, external-dns)
• workspaces — User workspace pods

AMI type is auto-detected from the instance family (CPU, GPU, Neuron; x86_64 or arm64).

Storage

Each workspace gets a dedicated EBS persistent volume mounted at /home/jovyan. Data persists across workspace stop/start cycles and pod restarts.

Custom workspace images

The template optionally creates ECR repositories and a CodeBuild project for building custom workspace images from Dockerfiles in the applications/ directory.

Details

Networking

The template creates a VPC with public and private subnets across two availability zones. EKS nodes run in private subnets; the Network Load Balancer (NLB) sits in public subnets and forwards TCP/443 to Traefik pods.

Amazon Route 53 manages DNS. The template references a Hosted Zone for your domain (which must already exist) and relies on external-dns to create DNS records pointing your subdomain to the NLB.

cert-manager obtains TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt using the DNS-01 challenge via Route 53.

Compute

The template creates EKS managed node groups with role-based scheduling. Each node group auto-detects the appropriate EKS-optimized AMI type for its instance type.

Application Images

The template creates infrastructure for building custom workspace images:

• ECR repository — One repository per application type. Stores the built container images.
• CodeBuild project — Builds Dockerfiles from the applications/ directory and pushes to ECR.
• IAM role — CodeBuild service role with permissions for ECR push and CloudWatch Logs.

IAM

The template creates several IAM roles:

• Cluster role — Used by the EKS control plane
• Node roles — One per node group, with managed policies for ECR pull, EKS worker nodes, and CNI
• Pod identity associations — cert-manager and external-dns use EKS Pod Identity for Route 53 access
• Admin access entries — The caller's IAM principal is always authorized automatically. Roles in admin_role_names and users in admin_user_names get cluster admin and workspace admin permissions. For stable state across caller switches, list every role/user that may run jd config or jd up

Helm charts

Chart	Namespace	Purpose
traefik-crds	Router namespace	Traefik CRDs (IngressRoute, Middleware, etc.)
jupyter-k8s	Operator namespace	Workspace operator, extension API server, CRDs
jupyter-k8s-aws-oidc	Router namespace	Traefik, Dex, OAuth2 Proxy, Authmiddleware

RBAC

The template deploys a github-rbac local chart that creates namespace-scoped Role and RoleBinding resources. Each namespace in workspace_rbac_namespaces gets a Role granting workspace CRUD permissions, bound to the GitHub teams in oauth_allowed_teams.

Presets

The template provides two variable presets:

• defaults-all.tfvars — comprehensive preset with all recommended values
• defaults-base.tfvars — minimal preset that additionally prompts for node group configuration

Inputs

Name	Type	Default	Description
cluster_name_prefix	string	jupyter-deploy-eks	Prefix for the EKS cluster name (template appends a unique suffix)
region	string	us-west-2	AWS region where to deploy the resources
kubernetes_version	string	1.35	Kubernetes version for the EKS cluster
domain	string	Required	Domain name for workspace URLs (must have a Route 53 hosted zone)
subdomain	string	Required	Subdomain prefix for workspace URLs
letsencrypt_email	string	Required	Email for Let's Encrypt certificate expiration notices
oauth_app_client_id	string	Required	Client ID of the GitHub OAuth app
oauth_app_client_secret	string	Required	Client secret of the GitHub OAuth app
oauth_allowed_teams	list(string)	Required	GitHub teams to allow access, in org:team format
node_groups	list(map(string))	See preset	EKS managed node groups (name, role, instance_type, disk_size_gb, sizing)
workspace_rbac_namespaces	list(string)	["default"]	Namespaces where teams get workspace permissions
admin_role_names	list(string)	[]	IAM role names to grant cluster and workspace admin (list all callers for stable state)
admin_user_names	list(string)	[]	IAM user names to grant cluster and workspace admin (list all callers for stable state)
cluster_log_retention_days	number	30	Days to retain EKS cluster CloudWatch logs
custom_tags	map(string)	{}	Tags added to all AWS resources
workspace_operator_namespace	string	jupyter-k8s-system	Namespace for the workspace operator
workspace_router_namespace	string	jupyter-k8s-router	Namespace for routing components
workspace_shared_namespace	string	jupyter-k8s-shared	Namespace for shared workspace resources
workspace_operator_chart_oci	string	See preset	OCI reference for the jupyter-k8s Helm chart
workspace_operator_chart_version	string	See preset	Version of the jupyter-k8s chart
workspace_router_chart_oci	string	See preset	OCI reference for the aws-oidc router chart
workspace_router_chart_version	string	See preset	Version of the aws-oidc chart
traefik_crd_chart_version	string	1.15.0	Version of the Traefik CRDs chart
workspaces_default_access_type	string	OwnerOnly	Default access type for new workspaces (OwnerOnly or Public)
workspaces_default_ownership_type	string	OwnerOnly	Default ownership type for new workspaces
workspaces_idle_shutdown_enabled	bool	true	Enable automatic idle shutdown for workspaces
workspaces_idle_shutdown_timeout_default	number	60	Default idle timeout in minutes (5-1440)
workspaces_idle_shutdown_timeout_min	number	15	Minimum idle timeout users can set (advanced; lower values mainly serve testing)
workspaces_idle_shutdown_timeout_max	number	480	Maximum idle timeout users can set (15-1440)
workspace_app_jupyterlab_use	bool	true	Build and deploy the JupyterLab workspace image
workspace_app_jupyterlab_app_type	string	jupyterlab	Application type identifier for the workspace template
workspace_app_jupyterlab_image_name	string	See preset	ECR repository name for the JupyterLab image
workspace_app_jupyterlab_image_build	string	v1	Build tag (increment to trigger rebuild)

Outputs

Name	Description
cluster_name	Name of the EKS cluster
cluster_endpoint	API server endpoint URL for the EKS cluster
cluster_ca_certificate	Base64-encoded CA certificate for the EKS cluster
region	AWS region where the cluster is deployed
deployment_id	Unique deployment identifier
vpc_id	ID of the VPC hosting the EKS cluster
workspace_operator_namespace	Kubernetes namespace for the workspace operator controller
workspace_router_namespace	Kubernetes namespace for routing components
workspace_shared_namespace	Kubernetes namespace for shared workspace resources
workspace_base_url	Base URL for workspace access
get_started_url	URL to the web UI
secret_arn	ARN of the Secrets Manager secret storing the OAuth app client secret
jupyterlab_image_uri	ECR image URI for the JupyterLab workspace image
kubeconfig_path	Path to the local kubeconfig file for this cluster

License

The AWS EKS OIDC Template is licensed under the MIT License.