<p>EKS cluster has an odd property which is that </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>When an Amazon EKS cluster is created, the IAM entity (user or role) that creates the cluster is added to the Kubernetes RBAC authorization table as the administrator (with system:master permissions). Initially, only that IAM user can make calls to the Kubernetes API server using kubectl.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/troubleshooting.html#unauthorized" rel="nofollow noreferrer">source</a></p>

<p>I have an EKS cluster. The user which originally created it was ephemeral (my organization uses SSO to manage AWS resources and the IAM entity that creates resources is ephemerally created as-needed then destroyed).</p>

<p>Does this mean I am permanently locked out of managing the EKS cluster via kubectl?</p>

<p>One workaround (hacky) is that if you create an IAM user with the same name as the IAM user that created the EKS cluster, you will be allowed to manage the EKS cluster via kubectl.</p>
