Skip to main content
A management plane builds your clusters and keeps track of them. It is what kubox cluster create talks to. You do not need your own to start — the managed console runs one for you. Run your own when the control layer has to sit inside your boundary. That is one less vendor for a security team to sign off.

​
Who runs one

One plane, many independent clusters. Two kinds of team want that shape:

SaaS providers

Run your software in a customer’s own AWS account when they ask. Each customer gets their own cluster, isolated from the rest.

Platform teams

Hand clusters to internal teams without becoming the bottleneck.
Your workloads keep running if the plane is unavailable. It builds and tracks clusters; it is not in their traffic path.

​
Sizing one

A plane runs two pools of machines, and they grow for different reasons: Keeping them separate is what stops a busy build queue from resizing everything.
Shows the sizes you can choose and what each one asks for. See kubox plane profiles.

​
Where it runs

Install a plane into any Kubernetes cluster you can reach — EKS, GKE, kind, or one Kubox built. You need nothing installed but the kubox binary.
The plane can run anywhere, but it builds in AWS. Run kubox admin aws bootstrap in the AWS account it builds from, wherever the plane itself lives.

​
Building one

One document describes a plane. One command builds it.
The command checks your account, DNS zone, image, bucket, and keys before it builds anything. If a check fails, nothing is created.
Add --plan to see what it would build, without building it.
If the install step fails after the cluster is built, you do not start over. The command prints a file path; pass that file to kubox admin install to finish the job.

​
Changing one

Two commands, and the difference matters.

Upgrade

Moves the plane to a new release. Your clusters, state, keys, and connected accounts are untouched.

Rebuild

Replaces the plane. Everything it manages keeps running.
kubox plane upgrade refuses if the cluster underneath would have to change. It tells you what differs and sends you to rebuild. An upgrade never turns into a rebuild without asking you.

​
Checking one

Two commands answer different questions.
status repeats what the plane last recorded. verify checks it against the real world. It asks three questions:
  • Can the plane reach its state?
  • Are its two keys actually separate?
  • Does each identity hold the access it should, and nothing more?
The last one matters most. An identity that has quietly gained extra access passes every other test.
Shows how loaded each pool is, so you know when to resize. See kubox plane capacity.

​
Deleting one

Deletes the plane only. Clusters it built keep running — they just stop being tracked.

Architecture

How planes, accounts, and clusters fit together.

Cloud accounts

What the plane may do in your AWS account.

Plane documents

Every field of plane.yaml.