Labels¶
Labels used in NodePool requirements to control which EC2 instances Karpenter provisions.
Community Karpenter uses the karpenter.k8s.aws/ prefix; EKS Auto Mode uses eks.amazonaws.com/.
Hypervisor¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-hypervisor¶
Filters instances by the underlying hypervisor technology.
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
nitro |
AWS Nitro System — modern instances (gen 5+). Better performance, security, and network throughput |
xen |
Xen hypervisor — older instances (gen 1–4) |
none |
Bare metal instances — no hypervisor layer |
kubernetes.io/arch¶
CPU architecture of the node.
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
amd64 |
x86_64 — Intel and AMD processors |
arm64 |
ARM 64-bit — AWS Graviton processors |
kubernetes.io/os¶
Operating system of the node. EKS Auto Mode only supports linux.
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
linux |
Linux |
windows |
Windows — not supported in EKS Auto Mode |
Instance type¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation¶
Generation number of the instance type within its category. Integer value, e.g. 4, 6, 7, 8.
Higher generation generally means better price/performance ratio.
Use Gt to require a minimum generation:
- key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation
operator: Gt
values: ["5"]
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-size¶
Size tier of the instance within its family. Controls the overall resource scale.
Common values: large, xlarge, 2xlarge, 4xlarge, 8xlarge, 12xlarge, 16xlarge,
24xlarge, 32xlarge, metal
CPU related¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-cpu¶
Number of vCPUs on the instance. Integer value, e.g. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 96, 192.
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-cpu-manufacturer¶
Manufacturer of the CPU. Useful for workloads optimised for a specific architecture or to avoid a vendor.
| Value | Description | Typical instance families |
|---|---|---|
intel |
Intel Xeon (Ice Lake, Sapphire Rapids, ...) | m7i, c7i, r7i, c6i, ... |
amd |
AMD EPYC | m7a, c7a, r7a, t3a, ... |
aws |
AWS Graviton (ARM) | m7g, c7g, r7g, t4g, ... |
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-cpu-sustained-clock-speed-mhz¶
Sustained CPU clock speed in MHz. Integer value, e.g. 3600.
Not available in EKS Auto Mode.
Storage related¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-ebs-bandwidth¶
Maximum EBS bandwidth in Mbps. Integer value, e.g. 3170, 9500, 19000.
Use Gt to guarantee a minimum EBS throughput for storage-intensive workloads.
Memory¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-memory¶
Total memory of the instance in MiB. Integer value, e.g. 8192 (8 GiB), 32768 (32 GiB),
131072 (128 GiB).
Network¶
karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-network-bandwidth¶
Baseline network bandwidth in Mbps. Integer value, e.g. 1876, 5000, 25000.
Use Gt to require a minimum network throughput:
- key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-network-bandwidth
operator: Gt
values: ["4999"]