EKS Worker AMI v20240315 or newer for EKS versions 1.23 or older now contains Docker v25 instead of v20

[ptailor1193]

As a reminder, Kubernetes no longer supports Dockershim. The Kubernetes team removed the runtime in Kubernetes version 1.24. For more information, see Kubernetes is Moving on From Dockershim: Commitments and Next Steps on the Kubernetes Blog.

Amazon EKS also ended support for Dockershim starting with the Kubernetes version 1.24 release. Amazon EKS AMIs that are officially published have containerd as the only runtime starting with version 1.24. This topic covers some details, but more information is available in All you need to know about moving to containerd on Amazon EKS.

However, if you are still using Docker (EKS Versions 1.23 or older) to build and/or run containers in EKS clusters, you should be aware that starting with EKS Worker AMI v20240315, the version of Docker has been updated from v20 to v25.

Customers using Docker BuildKit to build containers may see the below error message depending on how their applications use docker. If customers are using the Docker BuildKit from their application, they might experience pod failures. The error message will depends on whether customer opt-in to use BuildKit or not.

ERROR: BuildKit is enabled but the buildx component is missing or broken.
       Install the buildx component to build images with BuildKit:
       https://docs.docker.com/go/buildx

For mitigation: See Docker release notes

2. Nodes Fail to Join the Cluster

Using removed configuration parameters in the version of Docker included in the v202403DD AMI can prevent the Docker runtime from starting. Specifically, between Docker v20 and v25, the graph and oom-score-adjust flags have been removed. Customers may observe one of following error messages in the docker logs on the EC2 instance.

unable to configure the Docker daemon with file /etc/docker/daemon.json: 
the following directives don't match any configuration option: graph

DEPRECATED: The "oom-score-adjust" config parameter and the dockerd 
"--oom-score-adjust"

For mitigation: See Docker release notes - deprecated and OOM-score adjust for the daemon