aws-ecs-fargate

AWS ECS & Fargate

Run containerized applications on Amazon ECS with Fargate serverless compute or EC2 launch type.

When to Use This Skill

• Deploying Docker containers to AWS without managing servers (Fargate)
• Running microservices with service discovery and load balancing
• Setting up blue/green or rolling deployments for containerized apps
• Configuring auto-scaling for container workloads
• Migrating from docker-compose or Kubernetes to ECS
• Troubleshooting task failures, health check issues, or networking problems

Prerequisites

• AWS CLI v2 installed and configured
• Docker installed for building and pushing images
• IAM permissions: ecs:*, ecr:*, elasticloadbalancing:*, logs:*, iam:PassRole
• An ECR repository for storing container images
• A VPC with subnets and an ALB (see aws-vpc)

Cluster Setup

# Create an ECS cluster with Container Insights enabled
aws ecs create-cluster \
  --cluster-name production \
  --capacity-providers FARGATE FARGATE_SPOT \
  --default-capacity-provider-strategy '[
    {"capacityProvider": "FARGATE", "weight": 1, "base": 2},
    {"capacityProvider": "FARGATE_SPOT", "weight": 3}
  ]' \
  --settings '[{"name": "containerInsights", "value": "enabled"}]'

# List clusters
aws ecs list-clusters

# Describe cluster details
aws ecs describe-clusters --clusters production --include STATISTICS ATTACHMENTS

Push Image to ECR

# Create ECR repository
aws ecr create-repository \
  --repository-name myapp \
  --image-scanning-configuration scanOnPush=true \
  --encryption-configuration encryptionType=KMS

# Authenticate Docker to ECR
aws ecr get-login-password --region us-east-1 | \
  docker login --username AWS --password-stdin 123456789012.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

# Build, tag, and push
docker build -t myapp:latest .
docker tag myapp:latest 123456789012.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/myapp:latest
docker push 123456789012.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/myapp:latest