Task definition parameters - Amazon Elastic Container Service
FamilyLaunch typesTask roleTask execution roleNetwork modeRuntime platformTask sizeContainer definitionsElastic Inference accelerator nameTask placement constraintsProxy configurationVolumesTagsOther task definition parameters

Task definition parameters

Task definitions are split into separate parts: the task family, the IAM task role, the network mode, container definitions, volumes, task placement constraints, and launch types. The family and container definitions are required in a task definition. In contrast, task role, network mode, volumes, task placement constraints, and launch type are optional.

You can use these parameters in a JSON file to configure your task definition. For more information, see Example task definitions.

The following are more detailed descriptions for each task definition parameter.

Family

family

Type: string

Required: yes

When you register a task definition, you give it a family, which is similar to a name for multiple versions of the task definition, specified with a revision number. The first task definition that's registered into a particular family is given a revision of 1, and any task definitions registered after that are given a sequential revision number.

Launch types

When you register a task definition, you can specify a launch type that Amazon ECS should validate the task definition against. If the task definition doesn't validate against the compatibilities specified, a client exception is returned. For more information, see Amazon ECS launch types.

The following parameter is allowed in a task definition.

requiresCompatibilities

Type: string array

Required: no

Valid Values: EC2 | FARGATE | EXTERNAL

The launch type to validate the task definition against. This enables a check to ensure that all of the parameters that are used in the task definition meet the requirements of the launch type.

Task role

taskRoleArn

Type: string

Required: no

When you register a task definition, you can provide a task role for an IAM role that allows the containers in the task permission to call the AWS APIs that are specified in its associated policies on your behalf. For more information, see IAM roles for tasks.

When you launch the Amazon ECS-optimized Windows Server AMI, IAM roles for tasks on Windows require that the -EnableTaskIAMRole option is set. Your containers must also run some configuration code to use the feature. For more information, see Additional configuration for Windows IAM roles for tasks.

Task execution role

executionRoleArn

Type: string

Required: no

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the task execution role that grants the Amazon ECS container agent permission to make AWS API calls on your behalf. The task execution IAM role is required depending on the requirements of your task. For more information, see Amazon ECS task execution IAM role.

Network mode

networkMode

Type: string

Required: no

The Docker networking mode to use for the containers in the task. For Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Amazon EC2 Linux instances, the valid values are none, bridge, awsvpc, and host. If no network mode is specified, the default network mode is bridge. For Amazon ECS tasks hosted on Amazon EC2 Windows instances, the valid values are default, and awsvpc. If no network mode is specified, the default network mode is used.

If the network mode is set to none, the task's containers don't have external connectivity and port mappings can't be specified in the container definition.

If the network mode is bridge, the task uses Docker's built-in virtual network on Linux, which runs inside each Amazon EC2 instance that hosts the task. The built-in virtual network on Linux uses the bridge Docker network driver..

If the network mode is host, the task uses the host's network which bypasses Docker's built-in virtual network by mapping container ports directly to the ENI of the Amazon EC2 instance that hosts the task. Dynamic port mappings can’t be used in this network mode. A container in a task definition that uses this mode must specify a specific hostPort number. A port number on a host can’t be used by multiple tasks. As a result, you can’t run multiple tasks of the same task definition on a single Amazon EC2 instance.

Important

When running tasks that use the host network mode, do not run containers using the root user (UID 0) for better security. As a security best practice, always use a non-root user, instead of the root user.

If the network mode is awsvpc, the task is allocated an elastic network interface, and you must specify a NetworkConfiguration when you create a service or run a task with the task definition. For more information, see Amazon ECS task networking. Currently, only the Amazon ECS-optimized AMI, other Amazon Linux variants with the ecs-init package, or AWS Fargate infrastructure support the awsvpc network mode.

If the network mode is default, the task uses Docker's built-in virtual network on Windows, which runs inside each Amazon EC2 instance that hosts the task. The built-in virtual network on Windows uses the nat Docker network driver..

The host and awsvpc network modes offer the highest networking performance for containers because they use the Amazon EC2 network stack. With the host and awsvpc network modes, exposed container ports are mapped directly to the corresponding host port (for the host network mode) or the attached elastic network interface port (for the awsvpc network mode). Because of this, you can't use dynamic host port mappings.

If using the Fargate launch type, the awsvpc network mode is required. If using the EC2 launch type, the allowable network mode depends on the underlying EC2 instance's operating system. If Linux, any network mode can be used. If Windows, the default, and awsvpc modes can be used.

Runtime platform

The following parameters are required for Fargate launch types.

operatingSystemFamily

Type: string

Required: Conditional

Default: LINUX

This parameter is required for Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Fargate.

When you register a task definition, you specify the operating system family.

The valid values for Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Fargate are LINUX, WINDOWS_SERVER_2019_FULL, WINDOWS_SERVER_2019_CORE, WINDOWS_SERVER_2022_FULL, and WINDOWS_SERVER_2022_CORE.

The valid values for Amazon ECS tasks hosted on EC2 are LINUX, WINDOWS_SERVER_2022_CORE, WINDOWS_SERVER_2022_FULL, WINDOWS_SERVER_2019_FULL, and WINDOWS_SERVER_2019_CORE, WINDOWS_SERVER_2016_FULL, WINDOWS_SERVER_2004_CORE, and WINDOWS_SERVER_20H2_CORE.

All task definitions that are used in a service must have the same value for this parameter.

When a task definition is part of a service, this value must match the service platformFamily value.

cpuArchitecture

Type: string

Required: Conditional

Default: X86_64

This parameter is required for Amazon ECS tasks hosted on Fargate.

When you register a task definition, you specify the CPU architecture. The valid values are X86_64 and ARM64.

All task definitions that are used in a service must have the same value for this parameter.

When you have Linux tasks for either the Fargate launch type, or the EC2 launch type, you can set the value to ARM64. For more information, see Working with 64-bit ARM workloads on Amazon ECS.

Task size

When you register a task definition, you can specify the total CPU and memory used for the task. This is separate from the cpu and memory values at the container definition level. For tasks that are hosted on Amazon EC2 instances, these fields are optional. For tasks that are hosted on Fargate (both Linux and Windows), these fields are required and there are specific values for both cpu and memory that are supported.

Note

Task-level CPU and memory parameters are ignored for Windows containers. We recommend specifying container-level resources for Windows containers.

The following parameter is allowed in a task definition:

cpu

Type: string

Required: conditional

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

The hard limit of CPU units to present for the task. It can be expressed as an integer using CPU units (for example, 1024) or as a string using vCPUs (for example, 1 vCPU or 1 vcpu) in a task definition. When the task definition is registered, a vCPU value is converted to an integer indicating the CPU units.

For tasks that run on EC2 or external instances, this field is optional. If your cluster doesn't have any registered container instances with the requested CPU units available, the task fails. Supported values for tasks that run on EC2 or external instances are between 128 CPU units (0.125 vCPUs) and 10240 CPU units (10 vCPUs).

For tasks that run on Fargate (both Linux and Windows containers), this field is required and you must use one of the following values, which determines your range of supported values for the memory parameter:

CPU value

Memory value

Operating systems supported for AWS Fargate

256 (.25 vCPU)

512 MiB, 1 GB, 2 GB

Linux

512 (.5 vCPU)

1 GB, 2 GB, 3 GB, 4 GB

Linux

1024 (1 vCPU)

2 GB, 3 GB, 4 GB, 5 GB, 6 GB, 7 GB, 8 GB

Linux, Windows

2048 (2 vCPU)

Between 4 GB and 16 GB in 1 GB increments

Linux, Windows

4096 (4 vCPU)

Between 8 GB and 30 GB in 1 GB increments

Linux, Windows

8192 (8 vCPU)

Note

This option requires Linux platform 1.4.0 or later.

Between 16 GB and 60 GB in 4 GB increments

Linux

16384 (16vCPU)

Note

This option requires Linux platform 1.4.0 or later.

Between 32 GB and 120 GB in 8 GB increments

Linux
memory

Type: string

Required: conditional

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

The hard limit of memory (in MiB) to present to the task. It can be expressed as an integer using MiB (for example 1024) or as a string using GB (for example 1GB or 1 GB) in a task definition. When the task definition is registered, a GB value is converted to an integer indicating the MiB.

For tasks that are hosted on Amazon EC2 instances, this field is optional and any value can be used. If a task-level memory value is specified, then the container-level memory value is optional. If your cluster doesn't have any registered container instances with the requested memory available, the task fails. You can maximize your resource utilization by providing your tasks as much memory as possible for a particular instance type. For more information, see Container Instance Memory Management.

For tasks hosted on Fargate (both Linux and Windows containers), this field is required and you must use one of the following values, which determines your range of supported values for the cpu parameter:

Memory value (MiB)

CPU value

Operating systems supported for Fargate

512 (0.5 GB), 1024 (1 GB), 2048 (2 GB)

256 (.25 vCPU)

Linux

1024 (1 GB), 2048 (2 GB), 3072 (3 GB), 4096 (4 GB)

512 (.5 vCPU)

Linux

2048 (2 GB), 3072 (3 GB), 4096 (4GB), 5120 (5 GB), 6144 (6 GB), 7168 (7 GB), 8192 (8 GB)

1024 (1 vCPU)

Linux, Windows

Between 4096 (4 GB) and 16384 (16 GB) in increments of 1024 (1 GB)

2048 (2 vCPU)

Linux, Windows

Between 8192 (8 GB) and 30720 (30 GB) in increments of 1024 (1 GB)

4096 (4 vCPU)

Linux, Windows

Between 16 GB and 60 GB in 4 GB increments

Note

This option requires Linux platform 1.4.0 or later.

8192 (8 vCPU)

Linux

Between 32 GB and 120 GB in 8 GB increments

Note

This option requires Linux platform 1.4.0 or later.

16384 (16vCPU)

Linux

Container definitions

When you register a task definition, you must specify a list of container definitions that are passed to the Docker daemon on a container instance. The following parameters are allowed in a container definition.

Standard container definition parameters

The following task definition parameters are either required or used in most container definitions.

Name

name

Type: string

Required: yes

The name of a container. Up to 255 letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, hyphens, and underscores are allowed. If you're linking multiple containers in a task definition, the name of one container can be entered in the links of another container. This is to connect the containers.

Image

image

Type: string

Required: yes

The image used to start a container. This string is passed directly to the Docker daemon. Images in the Docker Hub registry are available by default. You can also specify other repositories with either repository-url/image:tag or repository-url/image@digest. Up to 255 letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, hyphens, underscores, colons, periods, forward slashes, and number signs are allowed. This parameter maps to Image in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the IMAGE parameter of docker run.

  • When a new task starts, the Amazon ECS container agent pulls the latest version of the specified image and tag for the container to use. However, subsequent updates to a repository image are not propagated to already running tasks.

  • Images in private registries are supported. For more information, see Private registry authentication for tasks.

  • Images in Amazon ECR repositories can be specified by using either the full registry/repository:tag or registry/repository@digest naming convention (for example, aws_account_id.dkr.ecr.region.amazonaws.com/my-web-app:latest or aws_account_id.dkr.ecr.region.amazonaws.com/my-web-app@sha256:94afd1f2e64d908bc90dbca0035a5b567EXAMPLE).

  • Images in official repositories on Docker Hub use a single name (for example, ubuntu or mongo).

  • Images in other repositories on Docker Hub are qualified with an organization name (for example, amazon/amazon-ecs-agent).

  • Images in other online repositories are qualified further by a domain name (for example, quay.io/assemblyline/ubuntu).

Memory

memory

Type: integer

Required: conditional

The amount (in MiB) of memory to present to the container. If your container attempts to exceed the memory specified here, the container is killed. The total amount of memory reserved for all containers within a task must be lower than the task memory value, if one is specified. This parameter maps to Memory in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --memory option to docker run.

If using the Fargate launch type, this parameter is optional.

If using the EC2 launch type, you must specify either a task-level memory value or a container-level memory value. If you specify both a container-level memory and memoryReservation value, memory must be greater than memoryReservation. If you specify memoryReservation, then that value is subtracted from the available memory resources for the container instance that the container is placed on. Otherwise, the value of memory is used.

The Docker 20.10.0 or later daemon reserves a minimum of 6 MiB of memory for a container. So, don't specify less than 6 MiB of memory for your containers.

The Docker 19.03.13-ce or earlier daemon reserves a minimum of 4 MiB of memory for a container. So, don't specify less than 4 MiB of memory for your containers.

Note

If you're trying to maximize your resource utilization by providing your tasks as much memory as possible for a particular instance type, see Container Instance Memory Management.

memoryReservation

Type: integer

Required: no

The soft limit (in MiB) of memory to reserve for the container. When system memory is under contention, Docker attempts to keep the container memory to this soft limit. However, your container can consume more memory when needed, up to either the hard limit that's specified with the memory parameter (if applicable), or all of the available memory on the container instance, whichever comes first. This parameter maps to MemoryReservation in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --memory-reservation option to docker run.

If a task-level memory value isn't specified, you must specify a non-zero integer for one or both of memory or memoryReservation in a container definition. If you specify both, memory must be greater than memoryReservation. If you specify memoryReservation, then that value is subtracted from the available memory resources for the container instance on which the container is placed. Otherwise, the value of memory is used.

For example, if your container normally uses 128 MiB of memory, but occasionally bursts to 256 MiB of memory for short periods of time, you can set a memoryReservation of 128 MiB, and a memory hard limit of 300 MiB. This configuration allows the container to only reserve 128 MiB of memory from the remaining resources on the container instance. At the same time, it also allows the container to use more memory resources when needed.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

The Docker 20.10.0 or later daemon reserves a minimum of 6 MiB of memory for a container. So, don't specify less than 6 MiB of memory for your containers.

The Docker 19.03.13-ce or earlier daemon reserves a minimum of 4 MiB of memory for a container. So, don't specify less than 4 MiB of memory for your containers.

Note

If you're trying to maximize your resource utilization by providing your tasks as much memory as possible for a particular instance type, see Container Instance Memory Management.

Port mappings

portMappings

Type: object array

Required: no

Port mappings allow containers to access ports on the host container instance to send or receive traffic.

For task definitions that use the awsvpc network mode, only specify the containerPort. The hostPort can be left blank or it must be the same value as the containerPort.

Port mappings on Windows use the NetNAT gateway address rather than localhost. There is no loopback for port mappings on Windows, so you cannot access a container's mapped port from the host itself.

Most fields of this parameter (containerPort, hostPort, protocol) maps to PortBindings in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --publish option to docker run. If the network mode of a task definition is set to host, host ports must either be undefined or match the container port in the port mapping.

Note

After a task reaches the RUNNING status, manual and automatic host and container port assignments are visible in the following locations:

  • Console: The Network Bindings section of a container description for a selected task.

  • AWS CLI: The networkBindings section of the describe-tasks command output.

  • API: The DescribeTasks response.

appProtocol

Type: string

Required: no

The application protocol that's used for the port mapping. This parameter only applies to Service Connect. We recommend that you set this parameter to be consistent with the protocol that your application uses. If you set this parameter, Amazon ECS adds protocol-specific connection handling to the service connect proxy.If you set this parameter, Amazon ECS adds protocol-specific telemetry in the Amazon ECS console and CloudWatch.

If you don't set a value for this parameter, then TCP is used. However, Amazon ECS doesn't add protocol-specific telemetry for TCP.

For more information, see Service Connect .

Valid protocol values: "HTTP" | "HTTP2" | "GRPC"

containerPort

Type: integer

Required: yes, when portMappings are used

The port number on the container that's bound to the user-specified or automatically assigned host port.

If using containers in a task with the Fargate launch type, exposed ports must be specified using containerPort.

For Windows containers on Fargate, you can't use port 3150 for the containerPort. This is because it's reserved.

If using containers in a task with the EC2 launch type and you specify a container port and not a host port, your container automatically receives a host port in the ephemeral port range. For more information, see hostPort. Port mappings that are automatically assigned in this way don't count toward the 100 reserved ports limit of a container instance.

hostPort

Type: integer

Required: no

The port number on the container instance to reserve for your container.

If using containers in a task with the Fargate launch type, the hostPort can either be kept blank or be the same value as containerPort.

If using containers in a task with the EC2 launch type, you can specify a non-reserved host port for your container port mapping (this is referred to as static host port mapping), or you can omit the hostPort (or set it to 0) while specifying a containerPort and your container automatically receives a port (this is referred to as dynamic host port mapping) in the ephemeral port range for your container instance operating system and Docker version.

The default ephemeral port range Docker version 1.6.0 and later is listed on the instance under /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range. If this kernel parameter is unavailable, the default ephemeral port range from 49153–65535 is used. Don't attempt to specify a host port in the ephemeral port range. This is because these are reserved for automatic assignment. In general, ports below 32768 are outside of the ephemeral port range.

The default reserved ports are 22 for SSH, the Docker ports 2375 and 2376, and the Amazon ECS container agent ports 51678-51680. Any host port that was previously user-specified for a running task is also reserved while the task is running (after a task stops, the host port is released). The current reserved ports are displayed in the remainingResources of describe-container-instances output, and a container instance might have up to 100 reserved ports at a time, including the default reserved ports. Automatically assigned ports do not count toward the 100 reserved ports limit.

name

Type: string

Required: no, required for Service Connect to be configured in a service

The name that's used for the port mapping. This parameter only applies to service connect. This parameter is the name that you use in the Service Connect configuration of a service.

For more information, see Service Connect .

In the following example, both of the required fields for Service Connect are shown.


"portMappings": [
    {
        "name": string,
        "containerPort": integer
    }
]
protocol

Type: string

Required: no

The protocol that's used for the port mapping. Valid values are tcp and udp. The default is tcp.

Important

Only tcp is supported for Service Connect. Remember that tcp is implied if this field isn't set.

Important

UDP support is only available on container instances that were launched with version 1.2.0 of the Amazon ECS container agent (such as the amzn-ami-2015.03.c-amazon-ecs-optimized AMI) or later, or with container agents that have been updated to version 1.3.0 or later. To update your container agent to the latest version, see Updating the Amazon ECS container agent.

If you're specifying a host port, use the following syntax.

"portMappings": [
    {
        "containerPort": integer,
        "hostPort": integer
    }
    ...
]

If you want an automatically assigned host port, use the following syntax.

"portMappings": [
    {
        "containerPort": integer
    }
    ...
]

Advanced container definition parameters

The following advanced container definition parameters provide extended capabilities to the docker run command that's used to launch containers on your Amazon ECS container instances.

Health check

healthCheck

The container health check command and the associated configuration parameters for the container. This parameter maps to HealthCheck in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the HEALTHCHECK parameter of docker run.

Note

The Amazon ECS container agent only monitors and reports on the health checks that are specified in the task definition. Amazon ECS doesn't monitor Docker health checks that are embedded in a container image but aren't specified in the container definition. Health check parameters that are specified in a container definition override any Docker health checks that exist in the container image.

You can view the health status of both individual containers and a task with the DescribeTasks API operation or when viewing the task details in the console.

The following describes the possible healthStatus values for a container:

  • HEALTHY—The container health check has passed successfully.

  • UNHEALTHY—The container health check has failed.

  • UNKNOWN—The container health check is being evaluated or there's no container health check defined.

The following describes the possible healthStatus values for a task. The container health check status of non-essential containers don't have an effect on the health status of a task.

  • HEALTHY—All essential containers within the task have passed their health checks.

  • UNHEALTHY—One or more essential containers have failed their health check.

  • UNKNOWN—The essential containers within the task are still having their health checks evaluated or there are no container health checks defined.

If a task is run manually and not as part of a service, it continues its lifecycle regardless of its health status. For tasks that are part of a service, if the task reports as unhealthy, then the task is stopped and the service scheduler replaces it.

The following are notes about container health check support:

  • Container health checks require version 1.17.0 or greater of the Amazon ECS container agent. For more information, see Updating the Amazon ECS container agent.

  • Container health checks are supported for Fargate tasks if you're using Linux platform version 1.1.0 or later. For more information, see AWS Fargate platform versions.

  • Container health checks aren't supported for tasks that are part of a service that is configured to use a Classic Load Balancer.

command

A string array representing the command that the container runs to determine if it's healthy. The string array can start with CMD to run the command arguments directly, or CMD-SHELL to run the command with the container's default shell. If neither is specified, CMD is used.

When registering a task definition in the AWS Management Console, use a comma separated list of commands, which are converted to a string after the task definition is created. An example input for a health check is the following.

CMD-SHELL, curl -f http://localhost/ || exit 1

When registering a task definition using the AWS Management Console JSON panel, the AWS CLI, or the APIs, you should enclose the list of commands in brackets. An example input for a health check is the following.

[ "CMD-SHELL", "curl -f http://localhost/ || exit 1" ]

An exit code of 0, with no stderr output, indicates success, and a non-zero exit code indicates failure. For more information, see HealthCheck in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API.

interval

The period of time (in seconds) between each health check execution. You may specify between 5 and 300 seconds. The default value is 30 seconds.

timeout

The period of time (in seconds) to wait for a health check to succeed before it's considered a failure. You may specify between 2 and 60 seconds. The default value is 5 seconds.

retries

The number of times to retry a failed health check before the container is considered unhealthy. You may specify between 1 and 10 retries. The default value is three retries.

startPeriod

The optional grace period to provide containers time to bootstrap in before failed health checks count towards the maximum number of retries. You can specify between 0 and 300 seconds. By default, startPeriod is disabled.

Environment

cpu

Type: integer

Required: conditional

The number of cpu units the Amazon ECS container agent reserves for the container. On Linux, this parameter maps to CpuShares in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --cpu-shares option to docker run.

This field is optional for tasks that use the Fargate launch type. The total amount of CPU reserved for all the containers that are within a task must be lower than the task-level cpu value.

Note

You can determine the number of CPU units that are available to each Amazon EC2 instance type by multiplying the number of vCPUs listed for that instance type on the Amazon EC2 Instances detail page by 1,024.

Linux containers share unallocated CPU units with other containers on the container instance with the same ratio as their allocated amount. For example, assume that you run a single-container task on a single-core instance type with 512 CPU units specified for that container, and that task is the only task running on the container instance. In this example, the container can use the full 1,024 CPU unit share at any given time. However, assume then that you launched another copy of the same task on that container instance. Each task is guaranteed a minimum of 512 CPU units when needed, and each container can float to higher CPU usage if the other container was not using it. However, if both tasks were 100% active all of the time, they are limited to 512 CPU units.

On Linux container instances, the Docker daemon on the container instance uses the CPU value to calculate the relative CPU share ratios for running containers. For more information, see CPU share constraint in the Docker documentation. The minimum valid CPU share value that the Linux kernel allows is 2. However, the CPU parameter isn't required, and you can use CPU values below two in your container definitions. For CPU values below two (including null), the behavior varies based on your Amazon ECS container agent version:

  • Agent versions <= 1.1.0: Null and zero CPU values are passed to Docker as 0, which Docker then converts to 1,024 CPU shares. CPU values of one are passed to Docker as one, which the Linux kernel converts to two CPU shares.

  • Agent versions >= 1.2.0: Null, zero, and CPU values of one are passed to Docker as two CPU shares.

On Windows container instances, the CPU limit is enforced as an absolute quota. Windows containers only have access to the specified amount of CPU that's defined in the task definition. A null or zero CPU value is passed to Docker as 0, which Windows interprets as 1% of one CPU.

For additional examples, see How Amazon ECS manages CPU and memory resources.

gpu

Type: ResourceRequirement object

Required: no

The number of physical GPUs that the Amazon ECS container agent reserves for the container. The number of GPUs reserved for all containers in a task must not exceed the number of available GPUs on the container instance the task is launched on. For more information, see Working with GPUs on Amazon ECS.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or containers that are hosted on Fargate.

Elastic Inference accelerator

Type: ResourceRequirement object

Required: no

For the InferenceAccelerator type, the value matches the deviceName for an InferenceAccelerator specified in a task definition. For more information, see Elastic Inference accelerator name.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers or containers hosted on Fargate.

essential

Type: Boolean

Required: no

If the essential parameter of a container is marked as true, and that container fails or stops for any reason, all other containers that are part of the task are stopped. If the essential parameter of a container is marked as false, then its failure doesn't affect the rest of the containers in a task. If this parameter is omitted, a container is assumed to be essential.

All tasks must have at least one essential container. If you have an application that's composed of multiple containers, group containers that are used for a common purpose into components, and separate the different components into multiple task definitions. For more information, see Application architecture.

"essential": true|false
entryPoint
Important

Early versions of the Amazon ECS container agent don't properly handle entryPoint parameters. If you have problems using entryPoint, update your container agent or enter your commands and arguments as command array items instead.

Type: string array

Required: no

The entry point that's passed to the container. This parameter maps to Entrypoint in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --entrypoint option to docker run. For more information about the Docker ENTRYPOINT parameter, see https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#entrypoint. 

"entryPoint": ["string", ...]
command

Type: string array

Required: no

The command that's passed to the container. This parameter maps to Cmd in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the COMMAND parameter to docker run. For more information about the Docker CMD parameter, see https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#cmd. If there are multiple arguments,make sure that each argument is a separated string in the array.

"command": ["string", ...]
workingDirectory

Type: string

Required: no

The working directory to run commands inside the container in. This parameter maps to WorkingDir in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --workdir option to docker run.

"workingDirectory": "string"
environmentFiles

Type: object array

Required: no

A list of files containing the environment variables to pass to a container. This parameter maps to the --env-file option to docker run.

This is not available for Windows containers.

You can specify up to ten environment files. The file must have a .env file extension. Each line in an environment file contains an environment variable in VARIABLE=VALUE format. Lines beginning with # are treated as comments and are ignored. For more information about the appropriate environment variable file syntax, see Declare default environment variables in file.

If there are individual environment variables specified in the container definition, they take precedence over the variables contained within an environment file. If multiple environment files are specified that contain the same variable, they're processed from the top down. We recommend that you use unique variable names. For more information, see Passing environment variables to a container.

value

Type: String

Required: Yes

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the Amazon S3 object containing the environment variable file.

type

Type: String

Required: Yes

The file type to use. The only supported value is s3.

environment

Type: object array

Required: no

The environment variables to pass to a container. This parameter maps to Env in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --env option to docker run.

Important

We do not recommend using plaintext environment variables for sensitive information, such as credential data.

name

Type: String

Required: Yes, when environment is used

The name of the environment variable.

value

Type: String

Required: Yes, when environment is used

The value of the environment variable.

"environment" : [
    { "name" : "string", "value" : "string" },
    { "name" : "string", "value" : "string" }
]
secrets

Type: Object array

Required: No

An object representing the secret to expose to your container. For more information, see Passing sensitive data to a container.

name

Type: String

Required: Yes

The value to set as the environment variable on the container.

valueFrom

Type: String

Required: Yes

The secret to expose to the container. The supported values are either the full Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the AWS Secrets Manager secret or the full ARN of the parameter in the AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store.

Note

If the Systems Manager Parameter Store parameter exists in the same AWS Region as the task that you're launching, you can use either the full ARN or name of the secret. If the parameter exists in a different Region then the full ARN must be specified.

"secrets": [
    {
        "name": "environment_variable_name",
        "valueFrom": "arn:aws:ssm:region:aws_account_id:parameter/parameter_name"
    }
]

Network settings

disableNetworking

Type: Boolean

Required: no

When this parameter is true, networking is off within the container. This parameter maps to NetworkDisabled in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or tasks using the awsvpc network mode.

"disableNetworking": true|false
links

Type: string array

Required: no

The link parameter allows containers to communicate with each other without the need for port mappings. Only supported if the network mode of a task definition is set to bridge. The name:internalName construct is analogous to name:alias in Docker links. Up to 255 letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, hyphens, and underscores are allowed. For more information about linking Docker containers, see https://docs.docker.com/engine/userguide/networking/default_network/dockerlinks/. This parameter maps to Links in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --link option to docker run.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or tasks using the awsvpc network mode.

Important

Containers that are collocated on the same container instance might be able to communicate with each other without requiring links or host port mappings. The network isolation on a container instance is controlled by security groups and VPC settings.

"links": ["name:internalName", ...]
hostname

Type: string

Required: no

The hostname to use for your container. This parameter maps to Hostname in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --hostname option to docker run.

Note

If you're using the awsvpc network mode, the hostname parameter isn't supported.

"hostname": "string"
dnsServers

Type: string array

Required: no

A list of DNS servers that are presented to the container. This parameter maps to Dns in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --dns option to docker run.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or tasks using the awsvpc network mode.

"dnsServers": ["string", ...]
dnsSearchDomains

Type: string array

Required: no

Pattern: ^[a-zA-Z0-9-.]{0,253}[a-zA-Z0-9]$

A list of DNS search domains that are presented to the container. This parameter maps to DnsSearch in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --dns-search option to docker run.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or tasks that use the awsvpc network mode.

"dnsSearchDomains": ["string", ...]
extraHosts

Type: object array

Required: no

A list of hostnames and IP address mappings to append to the /etc/hosts file on the container.

This parameter maps to ExtraHosts in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --add-host option to docker run.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers or tasks that use the awsvpc network mode.

"extraHosts": [
      {
        "hostname": "string",
        "ipAddress": "string"
      }
      ...
    ]
hostname

Type: string

Required: yes, when extraHosts are used

The hostname to use in the /etc/hosts entry.

ipAddress

Type: string

Required: yes, when extraHosts are used

The IP address to use in the /etc/hosts entry.

Storage and logging

readonlyRootFilesystem

Type: Boolean

Required: no

When this parameter is true, the container is given read-only access to its root file system. This parameter maps to ReadonlyRootfs in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --read-only option to docker run.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

"readonlyRootFilesystem": true|false
mountPoints

Type: Object Array

Required: No

The mount points for data volumes in your container.

This parameter maps to Volumes in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --volume option to docker run.

Windows containers can mount whole directories on the same drive as $env:ProgramData. Windows containers cannot mount directories on a different drive, and mount point cannot be across drives.

sourceVolume

Type: String

Required: Yes, when mountPoints are used

The name of the volume to mount.

containerPath

Type: String

Required: Yes, when mountPoints are used

The path on the container to mount the volume at.

readOnly

Type: Boolean

Required: No

If this value is true, the container has read-only access to the volume. If this value is false, then the container can write to the volume. The default value is false.

volumesFrom

Type: Object Array

Required: No

Data volumes to mount from another container. This parameter maps to VolumesFrom in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --volumes-from option to docker run.

sourceContainer

Type: string

Required: yes, when volumesFrom is used

The name of the container to mount volumes from.

readOnly

Type: Boolean

Required: no

If this value is true, the container has read-only access to the volume. If this value is false, then the container can write to the volume. The default value is false.

"volumesFrom": [
                {
                  "sourceContainer": "string",
                  "readOnly": true|false
                }
              ]
logConfiguration

Type: LogConfiguration Object

Required: no

The log configuration specification for the container.

For example task definitions that use a log configuration, see Example task definitions.

This parameter maps to LogConfig in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --log-driver option to docker run. By default, containers use the same logging driver that the Docker daemon uses. However, the container might use a different logging driver than the Docker daemon by specifying a log driver with this parameter in the container definition. To use a different logging driver for a container, the log system must be configured properly on the container instance (or on a different log server for remote logging options). For more information about the options for different supported log drivers, see Configure logging drivers in the Docker documentation.

Consider the following when specifying a log configuration for your containers:

  • Amazon ECS supports a subset of the logging drivers that are available to the Docker daemon (shown in the valid values that follow). Additional log drivers might be available in future releases of the Amazon ECS container agent.

  • This parameter requires version 1.18 or later of the Docker Remote API on your container instance.

  • For tasks that use the EC2 launch type, the Amazon ECS container agent that runs on a container instance must register the logging drivers that are available on that instance with the ECS_AVAILABLE_LOGGING_DRIVERS environment variable before containers placed on that instance can use these log configuration options. For more information, see Amazon ECS container agent configuration.

  • For tasks that use the Fargate launch type, because you don't have access to the underlying infrastructure your tasks are hosted on, any additional software needed must be installed outside of the task. For example, the Fluentd output aggregators or a remote host running Logstash to send Gelf logs to.

"logConfiguration": {
      "logDriver": "awslogs","fluentd","gelf","json-file","journald","logentries","splunk","syslog","awsfirelens",
      "options": {"string": "string"
        ...},
	"secretOptions": [{
		"name": "string",
		"valueFrom": "string"
	}]
}
logDriver

Type: string

Valid values: "awslogs","fluentd","gelf","json-file","journald","logentries","splunk","syslog","awsfirelens"

Required: yes, when logConfiguration is used

The log driver to use for the container. By default, the valid values that are listed earlier are log drivers that the Amazon ECS container agent can communicate with.

For tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the supported log drivers are awslogs, splunk, and awsfirelens.

For tasks that use the EC2 launch type, the supported log drivers are awslogs, fluentd, gelf, json-file, journald, logentries,syslog, splunk, and awsfirelens.

For more information about how to use the awslogs log driver in task definitions to send your container logs to CloudWatch Logs, see Using the awslogs log driver.

For more information about using the awsfirelens log driver, see Custom Log Routing.

Note

If you have a custom driver that isn't listed, you can fork the Amazon ECS container agent project that's available on GitHub and customize it to work with that driver. We encourage you to submit pull requests for changes that you want to have included. However, we don't currently provide support for running modified copies of this software.

This parameter requires version 1.18 of the Docker Remote API or greater on your container instance.

options

Type: string to string map

Required: no

The configuration options to send to the log driver.

When you use FireLens to route logs to an AWS service or AWS Partner Network (APN) destination for log storage and analytics, you can set the log-driver-buffer-limit option to limit the number of events that are buffered in memory, before being sent to the log router container. It can help to resolve potential log loss issue because high throughput might result in memory running out for the buffer inside of Docker. For more information, see Fluentd buffer limit.

This parameter requires version 1.19 of the Docker Remote API or greater on your container instance.

secretOptions

Type: object array

Required: no

An object that represents the secret to pass to the log configuration. Secrets used in log configuration may include an authentication token, certificate, or encryption key, for example.) For more information, see Passing sensitive data to a container.

name

Type: String

Required: Yes

The value to set as the environment variable on the container.

valueFrom

Type: String

Required: Yes

The secret to expose to the log configuration of the container.

"logConfiguration": {
	"logDriver": "splunk",
	"options": {
		"splunk-url": "https://cloud.splunk.com:8080",
		"splunk-token": "...",
		"tag": "...",
		...
	},
	"secretOptions": [{
		"name": "splunk-token",
		"valueFrom": "/ecs/logconfig/splunkcred"
	}]
}
firelensConfiguration

Type: FirelensConfiguration Object

Required: No

The FireLens configuration for the container. This is used to specify and configure a log router for container logs. For more information, see Custom log routing.

{
    "firelensConfiguration": {
        "type": "fluentd",
        "options": {
            "KeyName": ""
        }
    }
}
options

Type: String to string map

Required: No

The options to use when configuring the log router. This field is optional and can be used to specify a custom configuration file or to add additional metadata, such as the task, task definition, cluster, and container instance details to the log event. If specified, the syntax to use is "options":{"enable-ecs-log-metadata":"true|false","config-file-type:"s3|file","config-file-value":"arn:aws:s3:::mybucket/fluent.conf|filepath"}. For more information, see Creating a task definition that uses a FireLens configuration.

type

Type: String

Required: Yes

The log router to use. The valid values are fluentd or fluentbit.

Security

For more information about container security, see Task and container security in the Amazon ECS Best Practices Guide.

privileged

Type: Boolean

Required: no

When this parameter is true, the container is given elevated privileges on the host container instance (similar to the root user). We recommend against running containers with privileged. In most cases, you can specify the exact privileges that you need by using the specific parameters instead of using privileged.

This parameter maps to Privileged in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --privileged option to docker run.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers or tasks using the Fargate launch type.

"privileged": true|false
user

Type: string

Required: no

The user to use inside the container. This parameter maps to User in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --user option to docker run.

Important

When running tasks that use the host network mode, do not run containers using the root user (UID 0). As a security best practice, always use a non-root user, instead of the root user.

You can specify the user using the following formats. If specifying a UID or GID, you must specify it as a positive integer.

  • user

  • user:group

  • uid

  • uid:gid

  • user:gid

  • uid:group

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

"user": "string"
dockerSecurityOptions

Type: string array

Valid values: "no-new-privileges" | "apparmor:PROFILE" | "label:value" | "credentialspec:CredentialSpecFilePath"

Required: no

A list of strings to provide custom labels for SELinux and AppArmor multi-level security systems. For more information about valid values, see Docker Run Security Configuration. This field isn't valid for containers in tasks using the Fargate launch type.

With Windows containers, this parameter can be used to reference a credential spec file when configuring a container for Active Directory authentication. For more information, see Using gMSAs for Windows Containers.

This parameter maps to SecurityOpt in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --security-opt option to docker.

"dockerSecurityOptions": ["string", ...]
Note

The Amazon ECS container agent that run on a container instance must register with the ECS_SELINUX_CAPABLE=true or ECS_APPARMOR_CAPABLE=true environment variables before containers that are placed on that instance can use these security options. For more information, see Amazon ECS container agent configuration.

Resource limits

ulimits

Type: object array

Required: no

A list of ulimit values to define for a container. This value overwrites the default resource quota setting for the operating system. This parameter maps to Ulimits in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --ulimit option to docker run.

Amazon ECS tasks hosted on Fargate use the default resource limit values set by the operating system with the exception of the nofile resource limit parameter which Fargate overrides. The nofile resource limit sets a restriction on the number of open files that a container can use. The default nofile soft limit is 1024 and hard limit is 4096. For more information, see Task resource limits.

This parameter requires version 1.18 of the Docker Remote API or greater on your container instance.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

"ulimits": [
      {
        "name": "core"|"cpu"|"data"|"fsize"|"locks"|"memlock"|"msgqueue"|"nice"|"nofile"|"nproc"|"rss"|"rtprio"|"rttime"|"sigpending"|"stack",
        "softLimit": integer,
        "hardLimit": integer
      }
      ...
    ]
name

Type: string

Valid values: "core" | "cpu" | "data" | "fsize" | "locks" | "memlock" | "msgqueue" | "nice" | "nofile" | "nproc" | "rss" | "rtprio" | "rttime" | "sigpending" | "stack"

Required: yes, when ulimits are used

The type of the ulimit.

hardLimit

Type: integer

Required: yes, when ulimits are used

The hard limit for the ulimit type.

softLimit

Type: integer

Required: yes, when ulimits are used

The soft limit for the ulimit type.

Docker labels

dockerLabels

Type: string to string map

Required: no

A key/value map of labels to add to the container. This parameter maps to Labels in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --label option to docker run.

This parameter requires version 1.18 of the Docker Remote API or greater on your container instance.

"dockerLabels": {"string": "string"
      ...}

Other container definition parameters

The following container definition parameters can be used when registering task definitions in the Amazon ECS console by using the Configure via JSON option. For more information, see Creating a task definition using the new console.

Linux parameters

linuxParameters

Type: LinuxParameters object

Required: no

Linux-specific options that are applied to the container, such as KernelCapabilities.

Note

This parameter isn't supported for Windows containers.

"linuxParameters": {
      "capabilities": {
        "add": ["string", ...],
        "drop": ["string", ...]
        }
      }
capabilities

Type: KernelCapabilities object

Required: no

The Linux capabilities for the container that are added to or dropped from the default configuration provided by Docker. For more information about the default capabilities and the other available capabilities, see Runtime privilege and Linux capabilities in the Docker run reference. For more information about these Linux capabilities, see the capabilities(7) Linux manual page.

add

Type: string array

Valid values: "ALL" | "AUDIT_CONTROL" | "AUDIT_READ" | "AUDIT_WRITE" | "BLOCK_SUSPEND" | "CHOWN" | "DAC_OVERRIDE" | "DAC_READ_SEARCH" | "FOWNER" | "FSETID" | "IPC_LOCK" | "IPC_OWNER" | "KILL" | "LEASE" | "LINUX_IMMUTABLE" | "MAC_ADMIN" | "MAC_OVERRIDE" | "MKNOD" | "NET_ADMIN" | "NET_BIND_SERVICE" | "NET_BROADCAST" | "NET_RAW" | "SETFCAP" | "SETGID" | "SETPCAP" | "SETUID" | "SYS_ADMIN" | "SYS_BOOT" | "SYS_CHROOT" | "SYS_MODULE" | "SYS_NICE" | "SYS_PACCT" | "SYS_PTRACE" | "SYS_RAWIO" | "SYS_RESOURCE" | "SYS_TIME" | "SYS_TTY_CONFIG" | "SYSLOG" | "WAKE_ALARM"

Required: no

The Linux capabilities for the container to add to the default configuration provided by Docker. This parameter maps to CapAdd in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --cap-add option to docker run.

Note

Tasks that are launched on Fargate only support adding the SYS_PTRACE kernel capability.

drop

Type: string array

Valid values: "ALL" | "AUDIT_CONTROL" | "AUDIT_WRITE" | "BLOCK_SUSPEND" | "CHOWN" | "DAC_OVERRIDE" | "DAC_READ_SEARCH" | "FOWNER" | "FSETID" | "IPC_LOCK" | "IPC_OWNER" | "KILL" | "LEASE" | "LINUX_IMMUTABLE" | "MAC_ADMIN" | "MAC_OVERRIDE" | "MKNOD" | "NET_ADMIN" | "NET_BIND_SERVICE" | "NET_BROADCAST" | "NET_RAW" | "SETFCAP" | "SETGID" | "SETPCAP" | "SETUID" | "SYS_ADMIN" | "SYS_BOOT" | "SYS_CHROOT" | "SYS_MODULE" | "SYS_NICE" | "SYS_PACCT" | "SYS_PTRACE" | "SYS_RAWIO" | "SYS_RESOURCE" | "SYS_TIME" | "SYS_TTY_CONFIG" | "SYSLOG" | "WAKE_ALARM"

Required: no

The Linux capabilities for the container to remove from the default configuration that's provided by Docker. This parameter maps to CapDrop in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --cap-drop option to docker run.

devices

Any host devices to expose to the container. This parameter maps to Devices in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --device option to docker run.

Note

If you're using tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the devices parameter isn't supported.

Type: Array of Device objects

Required: No

hostPath

The path for the device on the host container instance.

Type: String

Required: Yes

containerPath

The path inside the container to expose the host device at.

Type: String

Required: No

permissions

The explicit permissions to provide to the container for the device. By default, the container has permissions for read, write, and mknod on the device.

Type: Array of strings

Valid Values: read | write | mknod

initProcessEnabled

Run an init process inside the container that forwards signals and reaps processes. This parameter maps to the --init option to docker run.

This parameter requires version 1.25 of the Docker Remote API or greater on your container instance.

maxSwap

The total amount of swap memory (in MiB) a container can use. This parameter is translated to the --memory-swap option to docker run where the value is the sum of the container memory plus the maxSwap value.

If a maxSwap value of 0 is specified, the container doesn't use swap. Accepted values are 0 or any positive integer. If the maxSwap parameter is omitted, the container uses the swap configuration for the container instance that it's running on. A maxSwap value must be set for the swappiness parameter to be used.

Note

If you're using tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the maxSwap parameter isn't supported.

sharedMemorySize

The value for the size (in MiB) of the /dev/shm volume. This parameter maps to the --shm-size option to docker run.

Note

If you are using tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the sharedMemorySize parameter is not supported.

Type: Integer

swappiness

This allows you to tune a container's memory swappiness behavior. A swappiness value of 0 prevents swapping from happening unless required. A swappiness value of 100 causes pages to be swapped frequently. Accepted values are whole numbers between 0 and 100. If you don't specify a value, the default value of 60 is used. Moreover, if you don't specify a value for maxSwap, then this parameter is ignored. This parameter maps to the --memory-swappiness option to docker run.

Note

If you're using tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the swappiness parameter isn't supported.

tmpfs

The container path, mount options, and maximum size (in MiB) of the tmpfs mount. This parameter maps to the --tmpfs option to docker run.

Note

If you're using tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the tmpfs parameter isn't supported.

Type: Array of Tmpfs objects

Required: No

containerPath

The absolute file path where the tmpfs volume is to be mounted.

Type: String

Required: Yes

mountOptions

The list of tmpfs volume mount options.

Type: Array of strings

Required: No

Valid Values: "defaults" | "ro" | "rw" | "suid" | "nosuid" | "dev" | "nodev" | "exec" | "noexec" | "sync" | "async" | "dirsync" | "remount" | "mand" | "nomand" | "atime" | "noatime" | "diratime" | "nodiratime" | "bind" | "rbind" | "unbindable" | "runbindable" | "private" | "rprivate" | "shared" | "rshared" | "slave" | "rslave" | "relatime" | "norelatime" | "strictatime" | "nostrictatime" | "mode" | "uid" | "gid" | "nr_inodes" | "nr_blocks" | "mpol"

size

The maximum size (in MiB) of the tmpfs volume.

Type: Integer

Required: Yes

Container dependency

dependsOn

Type: Array of ContainerDependency objects

Required: no

The dependencies defined for container startup and shutdown. A container can contain multiple dependencies. When a dependency is defined for container startup, for container shutdown it is reversed. For an example, see Example: Container dependency.

Note

If a container doesn't meet a dependency constraint or times out before meeting the constraint, Amazon ECS doesn't progress dependent containers to their next state.

For Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Amazon EC2 instances, the instances require at least version 1.26.0 of the container agent to enable container dependencies. However, we recommend using the latest container agent version. For information about checking your agent version and updating to the latest version, see Updating the Amazon ECS container agent. If you're using an Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux AMI, your instance needs at least version 1.26.0-1 of the ecs-init package. If your container instances are launched from version 20190301 or later, they contain the required versions of the container agent and ecs-init. For more information, see Amazon ECS-optimized AMI.

For Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Fargate, this parameter requires that the task or service uses platform version 1.3.0 or later (Linux) or 1.0.0 (Windows).

"dependsOn": [
    {
        "containerName": "string",
        "condition": "string"
    }
]
containerName

Type: String

Required: Yes

The container name that must meet the specified condition.

condition

Type: String

Required: Yes

The dependency condition of the container. The following are the available conditions and their behavior:

  • START – This condition emulates the behavior of links and volumes today. It validates that a dependent container is started before permitting other containers to start.

  • COMPLETE – This condition validates that a dependent container runs to completion (exits) before permitting other containers to start. This can be useful for non-essential containers that run a script and then exit. This condition can't be set on an essential container.

  • SUCCESS – This condition is the same as COMPLETE, but it also requires that the container exits with a zero status. This condition can't be set on an essential container.

  • HEALTHY – This condition validates that the dependent container passes its container health check before permitting other containers to start. This requires that the dependent container has health checks configured in the task definition. This condition is confirmed only at task startup.

Container timeouts

startTimeout

Type: Integer

Required: no

Example values: 120

Time duration (in seconds) to wait before giving up on resolving dependencies for a container.

For example, you specify two containers in a task definition with containerA having a dependency on containerB reaching a COMPLETE, SUCCESS, or HEALTHY status. If a startTimeout value is specified for containerB and it doesn't reach the desired status within that time, then containerA doesn't start.

Note

If a container doesn't meet a dependency constraint or times out before meeting the constraint, Amazon ECS doesn't progress dependent containers to their next state.

For Amazon ECS tasks that are hosted on Fargate, this parameter requires that the task or service uses platform version 1.3.0 or later (Linux).

stopTimeout

Type: Integer

Required: no

Example values: 120

Time duration (in seconds) to wait before the container is forcefully killed if it doesn't exit normally on its own.

For tasks that use the Fargate launch type, the task or service requires platform version 1.3.0 or later (Linux) or 1.0.0 or later (for Windows). The max stop timeout value is 120 seconds. However, if the parameter isn't specified, the default value of 30 seconds is used.

For tasks that use the EC2 launch type, if the stopTimeout parameter isn't specified, the value set for the Amazon ECS container agent configuration variable ECS_CONTAINER_STOP_TIMEOUT is used. If neither the stopTimeout parameter or the ECS_CONTAINER_STOP_TIMEOUT agent configuration variable is set, the default values of 30 seconds for Linux containers and 30 seconds on Windows containers are used. Container instances require at least version 1.26.0 of the container agent to enable a container stop timeout value. However, we recommend using the latest container agent version. For information about how to check your agent version and update to the latest version, see Updating the Amazon ECS container agent. If you're using an Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux AMI, your instance needs at least version 1.26.0-1 of the ecs-init package. If your container instances are launched from version 20190301 or later, they contain the required versions of the container agent and ecs-init. For more information, see Amazon ECS-optimized AMI.

System controls

systemControls

Type: SystemControl object

Required: no

A list of namespaced kernel parameters to set in the container. This parameter maps to Sysctls in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --sysctl option to docker run.

We do not recommend that you specify network-related systemControls parameters for multiple containers in a single task that also uses either the awsvpc or host network mode for the following reasons:

  • For tasks that use the awsvpc network mode, if you set systemControls for any container, it applies to all containers in the task. If you set different systemControls for multiple containers in a single task, the container that's started last determines which systemControls take effect.

  • For tasks that use the host network mode, the network namespace systemControls aren't supported.

If you're setting an IPC resource namespace to use for the containers in the task, the following conditions apply to your system controls. For more information, see IPC mode.

  • For tasks that use the host IPC mode, IPC namespace systemControls aren't supported.

  • For tasks that use the task IPC mode, IPC namespace systemControls values applies to all containers within a task.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers or tasks using the Fargate launch type.

"systemControls": [
    {
         "namespace":"string",
         "value":"string"
    }
]
namespace

Type: String

Required: no

The namespaced kernel parameter to set a value for.

Valid IPC namespace values: "kernel.msgmax" | "kernel.msgmnb" | "kernel.msgmni" | "kernel.sem" | "kernel.shmall" | "kernel.shmmax" | "kernel.shmmni" | "kernel.shm_rmid_forced", as well as Sysctls beginning with "fs.mqueue.*"

Valid network namespace values: Sysctls beginning with "net.*"

value

Type: String

Required: no

The value for the namespaced kernel parameter that's specified in namespace.

Interactive

interactive

Type: Boolean

Required: no

When this parameter is true, you can deploy containerized applications that require stdin or a tty to be allocated. This parameter maps to OpenStdin in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --interactive option to docker run.

Pseudo terminal

pseudoTerminal

Type: Boolean

Required: no

When this parameter is true, a TTY is allocated. This parameter maps to Tty in the Create a container section of the Docker Remote API and the --tty option to docker run.

Elastic Inference accelerator name

The Elastic Inference accelerator resource requirement for your task definition. For more information, see What Is Elastic Inference? in the Amazon Elastic Inference Developer Guide.

The following parameters are allowed in a task definition:

deviceName

Type: string

Required: yes

The Elastic Inference accelerator device name. The deviceName must also be referenced in a container definition see Elastic Inference accelerator.

deviceType

Type: string

Required: yes

The Elastic Inference accelerator to use.

Task placement constraints

When you register a task definition, you can provide task placement constraints that customize how Amazon ECS places tasks.

If you're using the Fargate launch type, task placement constraints aren't supported. By default Fargate tasks are spread across Availability Zones.

For tasks that use the EC2 launch type, you can use constraints to place tasks based on Availability Zone, instance type, or custom attributes. For more information, see Amazon ECS task placement constraints.

The following parameters are allowed in a container definition:

expression

Type: string

Required: no

A cluster query language expression to apply to the constraint. For more information, see Cluster query language.

type

Type: string

Required: yes

The type of constraint. Use memberOf to restrict the selection to a group of valid candidates.

Proxy configuration

proxyConfiguration

Type: ProxyConfiguration object

Required: no

The configuration details for the App Mesh proxy.

For tasks that use the EC2 launch type, the container instances require at least version 1.26.0 of the container agent and at least version 1.26.0-1 of the ecs-init package to enable a proxy configuration. If your container instances are launched from the Amazon ECS-optimized AMI version 20190301 or later, then they contain the required versions of the container agent and ecs-init. For more information, see Amazon ECS-optimized AMI.

For tasks that use the Fargate launch type, this feature requires that the task or service uses platform version 1.3.0 or later.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers.

"proxyConfiguration": {
    "type": "APPMESH",
    "containerName": "string",
    "properties": [
        {
           "name": "string",
           "value": "string"
        }
    ]
}
type

Type: String

Value values: APPMESH

Required: No

The proxy type. The only supported value is APPMESH.

containerName

Type: String

Required: Yes

The name of the container that serves as the App Mesh proxy.

properties

Type: Array of KeyValuePair objects

Required: No

The set of network configuration parameters to provide the Container Network Interface (CNI) plugin, specified as key-value pairs.

  • IgnoredUID – (Required) The user ID (UID) of the proxy container as defined by the user parameter in a container definition. This is used to ensure the proxy ignores its own traffic. If IgnoredGID is specified, this field can be empty.

  • IgnoredGID – (Required) The group ID (GID) of the proxy container as defined by the user parameter in a container definition. This is used to ensure the proxy ignores its own traffic. If IgnoredUID is specified, this field can be empty.

  • AppPorts – (Required) The list of ports that the application uses. Network traffic to these ports is forwarded to the ProxyIngressPort and ProxyEgressPort.

  • ProxyIngressPort – (Required) Specifies the port that incoming traffic to the AppPorts is directed to.

  • ProxyEgressPort – (Required) Specifies the port that outgoing traffic from the AppPorts is directed to.

  • EgressIgnoredPorts – (Required) The outbound traffic going to these specified ports is ignored and not redirected to the ProxyEgressPort. It can be an empty list.

  • EgressIgnoredIPs – (Required) The outbound traffic going to these specified IP addresses is ignored and not redirected to the ProxyEgressPort. It can be an empty list.

name

Type: String

Required: No

The name of the key-value pair.

value

Type: String

Required: No

The value of the key-value pair.

Volumes

When you register a task definition, you can optionally specify a list of volumes to be passed to the Docker daemon on a container instance, which then becomes available for access by other containers on the same container instance.

The following are the types of data volumes that can be used:

  • Docker volumes — A Docker-managed volume that is created under /var/lib/docker/volumes on the host Amazon EC2 instance. Docker volume drivers (also referred to as plugins) are used to integrate the volumes with external storage systems, such as Amazon EBS. The built-in local volume driver or a third-party volume driver can be used. Docker volumes are only supported when running tasks on Amazon EC2 instances. Windows containers only support the use of the local driver. To use Docker volumes, specify a dockerVolumeConfiguration in your task definition. For more information, see Using volumes.

  • Bind mounts — A file or directory on the host machine is mounted into a container. Bind mount host volumes are supported when running tasks on either AWS Fargate or Amazon EC2 instances. To use bind mount host volumes, specify a host and optional sourcePath value in your task definition. For more information, see Using bind mounts.

For more information, see Using data volumes in tasks.

The following parameters are allowed in a container definition.

name

Type: String

Required: No

The name of the volume. Up to 255 letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, hyphens, and underscores are allowed. This name is referenced in the sourceVolume parameter of container definition mountPoints object.

host

Required: No

Note

The host parameter is only supported when using tasks hosted on Amazon EC2 instances.

The host parameter is used to tie the lifecycle of the bind mount to the host Amazon EC2 instance, rather than the task, and where it is stored. If the host parameter is empty, then the Docker daemon assigns a host path for your data volume, but the data is not guaranteed to persist after the containers associated with it stop running.

Windows containers can mount whole directories on the same drive as $env:ProgramData.

sourcePath

Type: String

Required: No

When the host parameter is used, specify a sourcePath to declare the path on the host Amazon EC2 instance that is presented to the container. If this parameter is empty, then the Docker daemon assigns a host path for you. If the host parameter contains a sourcePath file location, then the data volume persists at the specified location on the host Amazon EC2 instance until you delete it manually. If the sourcePath value does not exist on the host Amazon EC2 instance, the Docker daemon creates it. If the location does exist, the contents of the source path folder are exported.

dockerVolumeConfiguration

Type: Object

Required: No

This parameter is specified when using Docker volumes. Docker volumes are only supported when running tasks on EC2 instances. Windows containers only support the use of the local driver. To use bind mounts, specify a host instead.

scope

Type: String

Valid Values: task | shared

Required: No

The scope for the Docker volume, which determines its lifecycle. Docker volumes that are scoped to a task are automatically provisioned when the task starts destroyed when the task is cleaned up. Docker volumes that are scoped as shared persist after the task stops.

autoprovision

Type: Boolean

Default value: false

Required: No

If this value is true, the Docker volume is created if it does not already exist. This field is only used if the scope is shared. If the scope is task then this parameter must either be omitted or set to false.

driver

Type: String

Required: No

The Docker volume driver to use. The driver value must match the driver name provided by Docker because it is used for task placement. If the driver was installed using the Docker plugin CLI, use docker plugin ls to retrieve the driver name from your container instance. If the driver was installed using another method, use Docker plugin discovery to retrieve the driver name. For more information, see Docker plugin discovery. This parameter maps to Driver in the Create a volume section of the Docker Remote API and the --driver option to docker volume create.

driverOpts

Type: String

Required: No

A map of Docker driver specific options to pass through. This parameter maps to DriverOpts in the Create a volume section of the Docker Remote API and the --opt option to docker volume create.

labels

Type: String

Required: No

Custom metadata to add to your Docker volume. This parameter maps to Labels in the Create a volume section of the Docker Remote API and the --label option to docker volume create.

efsVolumeConfiguration

Type: Object

Required: No

This parameter is specified when using Amazon EFS volumes.

fileSystemId

Type: String

Required: Yes

The Amazon EFS file system ID to use.

rootDirectory

Type: String

Required: No

The directory within the Amazon EFS file system to mount as the root directory inside the host. If this parameter is omitted, the root of the Amazon EFS volume will be used. Specifying / will have the same effect as omitting this parameter.

Important

If an EFS access point is specified in the authorizationConfig, the root directory parameter must either be omitted or set to / which will enforce the path set on the EFS access point.

transitEncryption

Type: String

Valid values: ENABLED | DISABLED

Required: No

Whether or not to enable encryption for Amazon EFS data in transit between the Amazon ECS host and the Amazon EFS server. Transit encryption must be enabled if Amazon EFS IAM authorization is used. If this parameter is omitted, the default value of DISABLED is used. For more information, see Encrypting Data in Transit in the Amazon Elastic File System User Guide.

transitEncryptionPort

Type: Integer

Required: No

The port to use when sending encrypted data between the Amazon ECS host and the Amazon EFS server. If you do not specify a transit encryption port, it will use the port selection strategy that the Amazon EFS mount helper uses. For more information, see EFS Mount Helper in the Amazon Elastic File System User Guide.

authorizationConfig

Type: Object

Required: No

The authorization configuration details for the Amazon EFS file system.

accessPointId

Type: String

Required: No

The access point ID to use. If an access point is specified, the root directory value in the efsVolumeConfiguration must either be omitted or set to / which will enforce the path set on the EFS access point. If an access point is used, transit encryption must be enabled in the EFSVolumeConfiguration. For more information, see Working with Amazon EFS Access Points in the Amazon Elastic File System User Guide.

iam

Type: String

Valid values: ENABLED | DISABLED

Required: No

Whether or not to use the Amazon ECS task IAM role defined in a task definition when mounting the Amazon EFS file system. If enabled, transit encryption must be enabled in the EFSVolumeConfiguration. If this parameter is omitted, the default value of DISABLED is used. For more information, see IAM Roles for Tasks.

FSxWindowsFileServerVolumeConfiguration

Type: Object

Required: Yes

This parameter is specified when you are using the FSx for Windows File Server file system for task storage.

fileSystemId

Type: String

Required: Yes

The FSx for Windows File Server file system ID to use.

rootDirectory

Type: String

Required: Yes

The directory within the FSx for Windows File Server file system to mount as the root directory inside the host.

authorizationConfig
credentialsParameter

Type: String

Required: Yes

The authorization credential options.

options:

domain

Type: String

Required: Yes

A fully qualified domain name hosted by an AWS Directory Service Managed Microsoft AD (Active Directory) or self-hosted EC2 AD.

Tags

When you register a task definition, you can optionally specify metadata tags that are applied to the task definition. Tags help you categorize and organize your task definition. Each tag consists of a key and an optional value. You define both of them. For more information, see Tagging your Amazon ECS resources.

Important

Don't add personally identifiable information or other confidential or sensitive information in tags. Tags are accessible to many AWS services, including billing. Tags aren't intended to be used for private or sensitive data.

The following parameters are allowed in a tag object.

key

Type: string

Required: no

One part of a key-value pair that make up a tag. A key is a general label that acts like a category for more specific tag values.

value

Type: string

Required: no

The optional part of a key-value pair that make up a tag. A value acts as a descriptor within a tag category (key).

Other task definition parameters

The following task definition parameters can be used when registering task definitions in the Amazon ECS console by using the Configure via JSON option. For more information, see Creating a task definition using the new console.

Ephemeral storage

ephemeralStorage

Type: Object

Required: No

The amount of ephemeral storage (in GB) to allocate for the task. This parameter is used to expand the total amount of ephemeral storage available, beyond the default amount, for tasks that are hosted on AWS Fargate. For more information, see Bind mounts.

Note

This parameter is only supported for tasks that are hosted on AWS Fargate using platform version 1.4.0 or later (Linux). This isn't supported for Windows containers on Fargate.

IPC mode

ipcMode

Type: String

Required: No

The IPC resource namespace to use for the containers in the task. The valid values are host, task, or none. If host is specified, then all the containers that are within the tasks that specified the host IPC mode on the same container instance share the same IPC resources with the host Amazon EC2 instance. If task is specified, all the containers that are within the specified task share the same IPC resources. If none is specified, then IPC resources within the containers of a task are private and not shared with other containers in a task or on the container instance. If no value is specified, then the value for ipcMode is set to shareable. For more information, see IPC settings in the Docker run reference.

If the host IPC mode is used, there's a heightened risk of undesired IPC namespace exposure. For more information, see Docker security.

If you're setting namespaced kernel parameters that use systemControls for the containers in the task, the following applies to your IPC resource namespace. For more information, see System controls.

  • For tasks that use the host IPC mode, IPC namespace that's related systemControls aren't supported.

  • For tasks that use the task IPC mode, systemControls that relate to the IPC namespace apply to all containers within a task.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers or tasks using the Fargate launch type.

PID mode

pidMode

Type: String

Required: No

The process namespace to use for the containers in the task. The valid values are host or task. If host is specified, all containers within the tasks that specified the host PID mode on the same container instance share the same process namespace with the host Amazon EC2 instance. If task is specified, all containers within the specified task share the same process namespace. If no value is specified, the default is a private namespace. For more information, see PID settings in the Docker run reference.

If the host PID mode is used, there's a heightened risk of undesired process namespace exposure. For more information, see Docker security.

Note

This parameter is not supported for Windows containers or tasks using the Fargate launch type.