Create services with a load balancer

[geowa4]

ecs-cli has been wonderful. For me, it's missing the ability to create services with load balancers. As a workaround, I define tasks with ecs-cli and use aws-cli (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ecs/create-service.html) to create the service with the load balancer.

[veered]

+1

[MathieuLescure]

+1

[nacyot]

+1

[geowa4]

PSA: use the subscribe button on the right to indicate "+1".

[johndoran]

+1

[c05mic]

+1

[lox]

I wrote this in the meantime: https://github.com/lox/ecsy

[smiller171]

Has there been any traction on this?

[andymotta]

+1

[MichaelNesterenko]

+1

[jedhassell]

+1

[khouse]

+1

[AmielYanez]

+1

[sunghoaraipark]

+1

[smiller171]

@sunghoaraipark @vincetse There is a built in voting system now using reactions. it's better to add a thumbs up reaction to the first comment

[engineeringsnap]

Hi, do we have any idea of an ETA of when / if this might be available?

[mfonsen]

As there has been no updates on this, I've been using Cloudformation for few months now for managing ECS. After recent updates, it supports all paramaters I need. Might work for some one else too.

[chrisheaththomas]

+1

[ankitcha]

+1

[kaihendry]

@geowa4 @mfonsen Would be good if you iterate the steps you use on the cli to create a cluster with a load balancer.

My current work around is to create the service manually in the console but that can fraught with error and confusion. 😁

[ankitcha]

@kaihendry I am using following script to do what @geowa4 mentioned in the description

ecs-cli configure --region us-east-1 --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME

# create ecs cluster of ec2 instances
ecs-cli up --keypair $KEY_PAIR --capability-iam --size $CLUSTER_SIZE --security-group $SSH_SECURITY_GROUP --vpc $VPC_ID --subnets $SUBNET_ID --image-id $AMI_ID --instance-type $INSTANCE_TYPE --verbose

# create task definition for a docker container
ecs-cli compose --file compose.yml --project-name $CLUSTER_NAME --verbose create

# create elb & add a dns CNAME for the elb dns
aws elb create-load-balancer --load-balancer-name "$CLUSTER_NAME" --listeners Protocol="TCP,LoadBalancerPort=8080,InstanceProtocol=TCP,InstancePort=8080" --subnets "$SUBNET_ID" --security-groups "$ECS_SECURITY_GROUP" --scheme internal

# create service with above created task definition & elb
aws ecs create-service --service-name "ecscompose-service-$CLUSTER_NAME" --cluster "$CLUSTER_NAME" --task-definition "ecscompose-$CLUSTER_NAME" --load-balancers "loadBalancerName=$CLUSTER_NAME,containerName=demo-service,containerPort=8080" --desired-count 1 --deployment-configuration "maximumPercent=200,minimumHealthyPercent=50" --role ecsServiceRole

and my compose.yml is as follows

demo-service:
    image: ubuntu
    ports:
        - "8080:8080"
    cpu_shares: 512
    mem_limit: 1024

[lrepolho]

+1

[smiller171]

@LeandroCR please use the built-in reaction system instead of a "+1" comment. GitHub finally implemented it (and you can sort issues by them) so let's use them! 😄

[TakaraShinya]

+1

[kaihendry]

Thanks for the starting point @ankitcha

I maintain a set of scripts to setup the load balancer with ECS here: https://github.com/kaihendry/count

I really really hope ecs-cli gets some love and fixes this standard use case.

[dcworldwide]

New to ecs, dissapointed to see this use case isn't supported OOTB.

Thanks for sharing your workaround @ankitcha, I'm just wondering, if you subsequently scale out/in your containers, will ELB automatically update to reflect the changes?

[isaacd9]

Excuse me, I just neglected to include the role flag, I did include it the the command. However, this does seem to be broken in that when the service has already been created, it doesn't fail without a role flag.

I'm not sure what you mean by "when the service is not created with the LB". I created the ELB and target groups from within the console and specified the ARN that I created in the command above. Do I need to do something other than just run the ecs-cli compose command?

[isaacd9]

Oh, huh. I was wondering why it wasn't updating when I updated the service definition, but it seems like there's no way to update the load balancer a service uses?

It looks like it's missing from UpdateServiceInput which Up() uses under the hood. Not sure how I missed this. I see it's in the docs now. So sorry. :(

[yinshiua]

Ahh, I see. The behavior is expected, see documentation:

After you create a service, the target group ARN or load balancer name, container name, and container port specified in the service definition are immutable. You cannot add, remove, or change the load balancer configuration of an existing service. If you update the task definition for the service, the container name and container port that were specified when the service was created must remain in the task definition.

To avoid confusions here, we should add validations on cli when the service already exists.

[isaacd9]

Yeah, this was really confusing and spent about an hour on it last night. An error message would be nice. :)

Cool if I submit a PR to this effect?

[yinshiua]

Sorry for the confusion, we definitely need better error handling here. I will create a new issue to follow up on this :) Thanks!

[shatil]

@yinshiua, any idea whether this will be created using Cloudformation or via API?

[yinshiua]

@shatil Currently, we only support using existing ELB in Create Service. We are planning on supporting the ELB creation possibly using the CloudFormation, but I do not have an ETA yet.

[kaihendry]

Since I struggle with this every week, I thought I would share the script I use to deploy services with.
https://github.com/unee-t/bugzilla/blob/master/deploy.sh

Prerequisites:

1. Create the ALB & targets manually in the console
2. I assume you've setup ecsServiceRole with the AmazonEC2ContainerServiceRole policy

So I wish there was something to quickly create the ALBs, not easy thanks to a certificate dance.

And not sure what or where the role was supposed to be created. I do it manually on new accounts for want of a better way.

[mhaggerty042]

@kaihendry I get a 404 on your link

[kaihendry]

Oops, @mhaggerty042
https://github.com/unee-t/bugzilla-customisation/blob/master/deploy.sh

[jasonrhaas]

I see that the latest docs have already been updated with support for adding a load balancer to a service -- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/cmd-ecs-cli-compose-service.html

Any idea when this version will be released? Are there instructions with how to build from source?

[jordantomax]

@SoManyHs Is what @jasonrhaas says true? Or is the best way still to generate tasks using ecs-cli compose and use aws ecs create-service with the new task definition?

[PettitWesley]

@jordantomax Yes, what @jasonrhaas mentions is correct. The docs link has changed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/cmd-ecs-cli-compose-service-up.html

Here's an example of creating a service with an ALB (target group and ALB must already exist):

ecs-cli compose service up  \
--target-group-arn <your target group ARN> \
--container-name <your container name> \
--container-port <container port to route traffic too>

We're going to close this issue; for any new requests, please open a new issue and we'll respond accordingly. Thanks everyone for the feedback, we use this to help prioritize features for the ECS CLI!

[SoManyHs]

@jordantomax If you wanted to create a load balancer in the same workflow as creating an ECS service (rather than specifying one that was created separately), you might be interested in checking out the CDK! https://awslabs.github.io/aws-cdk/refs/_aws-cdk_aws-ecs.html#include-a-load-balancer

[jordantomax]

@PettitWesley I'm happy to create a new issue if you think that's the best thing to do. However, the command you listed still isn't working for me :(. The docs you sent are for create not for up. Was that your intention? Thanks in advance.

[PettitWesley]

@jordantomax Yeah, please create a new issue if you want the ECS CLI to support creating a load balancer, as opposed to merely creating an ECS Service with an existing load balancer.

Sorry about the docs link- I've edited it to include the link for up. However, up works the same as create, it just additionally sets the desired count of the service to 1.

Also, for your problem with the command- can you create a new issue and show the exact command that you ran, etc? That would help us determine your problem. Right now, our best guess is that you might not be using the correct ARN with the target group flag- that's something we've seen before.

[jordantomax]

@PettitWesley Got it. Actually looks like my problem was that I was specifying the flag on the compose command instead of on the up command. All working now, thank you!

[pecigonzalo]

Will this parameter be added to the ecs-params.yml?

[PettitWesley]

@pecigonzalo The parameter can definitely be added to the ECS Params yaml file! Can you create an issue so that we can track that request? Also, we always welcome pull requests, especially for small improvements like this :)

[pecigonzalo]

Sure things, I was unsure if it was support and just not documented. Will open an issue and try to PR the fix.

…

On Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 7:20 PM Wesley Pettit ***@***.*** wrote: @pecigonzalo <https://github.com/pecigonzalo> The parameter can definitely be added to the ECS Params yaml file! Can you create an issue so that we can track that request? Also, we always welcome pull requests, especially for small improvements like this :) — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#21 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJcviez4fI3Ogg9eZiXNd1xMmwtDU1FMks5vEL7egaJpZM4GN2XE> .

[PettitWesley]

@pecigonzalo Awesome!