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Prerequisites

Before you begin using the GenAI on EKS Starter Kit, ensure you have the following tools and access configured.

Required Tools

Install these tools before proceeding with the setup:

AWS CLI

The AWS Command Line Interface for interacting with AWS services.

Install AWS CLI

Terraform

Infrastructure as Code tool for provisioning AWS resources.

Install Terraform

Node.js

JavaScript runtime required for the CLI tool and configuration management.

Install Node.js

kubectl

Kubernetes command-line tool for cluster management.

Install kubectl

Helm

Package manager for Kubernetes applications.

Install Helm

Docker and Buildx

Container platform and multi-architecture build plugin.

Multi-Architecture Builds

By default, docker buildx is used to build multi-arch container images. You can disable this by modifying the docker section in config.json or config.local.json.

AWS Account Requirements

You'll need an AWS account with appropriate permissions to:

  • Create VPC, subnets, and networking resources
  • Provision EKS clusters and node groups
  • Create EFS file systems
  • Manage Route 53 hosted zones and DNS records
  • Request and manage ACM certificates
  • Create and manage ECR repositories
  • Deploy EC2 instances (including GPU instances)

IAM Permissions

Ensure your AWS credentials have sufficient permissions to create and manage these resources. Administrator access is recommended for initial setup.

Optional Components

Hugging Face Account

Required if you plan to use models that require authentication.

See User access tokens documentation for more details.

Route 53 Hosted Zone

A domain name configured with a Route 53 hosted zone is recommended but not required.

With a domain:

  • Single shared ALB with HTTPS
  • Wildcard ACM certificate
  • Services exposed at service.<DOMAIN> (e.g., litellm.example.com)

Without a domain:

  • Multiple ALBs with HTTP
  • Individual ALB per public-facing service
  • Limited to one service with Nginx Ingress basic auth

Domain Configuration

If you don't have a domain yet but plan to use one, set it up before running the initial configuration to avoid reconfiguration later.

Verification

After installing all tools, verify they're available:

aws --version
terraform --version
node --version
kubectl version --client
helm version
docker --version
docker buildx version

All commands should return version information without errors.

Next Steps

Once you have all prerequisites installed, proceed to the Quick Start guide.