Getting started with AWS App Mesh and Amazon ECS - AWS App Mesh
ScenarioPrerequisitesStep 1: Create a mesh and virtual serviceStep 2: Create a virtual nodeStep 3: Create a virtual router and routeStep 4: Review and createStep 5: Create additional resourcesStep 6: Update servicesAdvanced topics

Getting started with AWS App Mesh and Amazon ECS

This topic helps you use AWS App Mesh with an actual service that is running on Amazon ECS. This tutorial covers basic features of several App Mesh resource types.

Scenario

To illustrate how to use App Mesh, assume that you have an application with the following characteristics:

  • Consists of two services named serviceA and serviceB.

  • Both services are registered to a namespace named apps.local.

  • ServiceA communicates with serviceB over HTTP/2, port 80.

  • You have already deployed version 2 of serviceB and registered it with the name serviceBv2 in the apps.local namespace.

You have the following requirements:

  • You want to send 75 percent of the traffic from serviceA to serviceB and 25 percent of the traffic to serviceBv2 to validate that serviceBv2 is bug free before you send 100 percent of the traffic from serviceA to it.

  • You want to be able to easily adjust the traffic weighting so that 100 percent of the traffic goes to serviceBv2 once it is proven to be reliable. Once all traffic is being sent to serviceBv2, you want to discontinue serviceB.

  • You do not want to have to change any existing application code or service discovery registration for your actual services to meet the previous requirements.

To meet your requirements, you decide to create an App Mesh service mesh with virtual services, virtual nodes, a virtual router, and a route. After implementing your mesh, you update your services to use the Envoy proxy. Once updated, your services communicate with each other through the Envoy proxy rather than directly with each other.

Prerequisites

  • An existing understanding of App Mesh concepts. For more information, see What Is AWS App Mesh?.

  • An existing understanding of Amazon ECSs concepts. For more information, see What is Amazon ECS in the Amazon Elastic Container Service Developer Guide.

  • App Mesh supports Linux services that are registered with DNS, AWS Cloud Map, or both. To use this getting started guide, we recommend that you have three existing services that are registered with DNS. The procedures in this topic assume that the existing services are named serviceA, serviceB, and serviceBv2 and that all services are discoverable through a namespace named apps.local.

    You can create a service mesh and its resources even if the services don't exist, but you cannot use the mesh until you have deployed actual services. For more information about service discovery on Amazon ECS, see Service Discovery. To create an Amazon ECS service with service discovery, see Tutorial: Creating a Service Using Service Discovery. If you don't already have services running, you can Create an Amazon ECS service with service discovery.

Step 1: Create a mesh and virtual service

A service mesh is a logical boundary for network traffic between the services that reside within it. For more information, see Service Meshes. A virtual service is an abstraction of an actual service. For more information, see Virtual services.

Create the following resources:

  • A mesh named apps, since all of the services in the scenario are registered to the apps.local namespace.

  • A virtual service named serviceb.apps.local, since the virtual service represents a service that is discoverable with that name, and you don't want to change your code to reference another name. A virtual service named servicea.apps.local is added in a later step.

You can use the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI version 1.18.116 or higher or 2.0.38 or higher to complete the following steps. If using the AWS CLI, use the aws --version command to check your installed AWS CLI version. If you don't have version 1.18.116 or higher or 2.0.38 or higher installed, then you must install or update the AWS CLI. Select the tab for the tool that you want to use.

AWS Management Console

  1. Open the App Mesh console first-run wizard at https://console.aws.amazon.com/appmesh/get-started.

  2. For Mesh name, enter apps.

  3. For Virtual service name, enter serviceb.apps.local.

  4. To continue, choose Next.

AWS CLI

  1. Create a mesh with the create-mesh command.

    aws appmesh create-mesh --mesh-name apps

  2. Create a virtual service with the create-virtual-service command.

    aws appmesh create-virtual-service --mesh-name apps --virtual-service-name serviceb.apps.local --spec {}

Step 2: Create a virtual node

A virtual node acts as a logical pointer to an actual service. For more information, see Virtual nodes.

Create a virtual node named serviceB, since one of the virtual nodes represents the actual service named serviceB. The actual service that the virtual node represents is discoverable through DNS with a hostname of serviceb.apps.local. Alternately, you can discover actual services using AWS Cloud Map. The virtual node will listen for traffic using the HTTP/2 protocol on port 80. Other protocols are also supported, as are health checks. You will create virtual nodes for serviceA and serviceBv2 in a later step.

AWS Management Console

  1. For Virtual node name, enter serviceB.

  2. For Service discovery method, choose DNS and enter serviceb.apps.local for DNS hostname.

  3. Under Listener configuration, choose http2 for Protocol and enter 80 for Port.

  4. To continue, choose Next.

AWS CLI

  1. Create a file named create-virtual-node-serviceb.json with the following contents:

    {
    "meshName": "apps",
    "spec": {
        "listeners": [
            {
                "portMapping": {
                    "port": 80,
                    "protocol": "http2"
                }
            }
        ],
        "serviceDiscovery": {
            "dns": {
                "hostname": "serviceB.apps.local"
            }
        }
    },
    "virtualNodeName": "serviceB"
}

  2. Create the virtual node with the create-virtual-node command using the JSON file as input.

    aws appmesh create-virtual-node --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-node-serviceb.json

Step 3: Create a virtual router and route

Virtual routers route traffic for one or more virtual services within your mesh. For more information, see Virtual routers and Routes.

Create the following resources:

  • A virtual router named serviceB, since the serviceB.apps.local virtual service does not initiate outbound communication with any other service. Remember that the virtual service that you created previously is an abstraction of your actual serviceb.apps.local service. The virtual service sends traffic to the virtual router. The virtual router listens for traffic using the HTTP/2 protocol on port 80. Other protocols are also supported.

  • A route named serviceB. It routes 100 percent of its traffic to the serviceB virtual node. The weight is in a later step once you add the serviceBv2 virtual node. Though not covered in this guide, you can add additional filter criteria for the route and add a retry policy to cause the Envoy proxy to make multiple attempts to send traffic to a virtual node when it experiences a communication problem.

AWS Management Console

  1. For Virtual router name, enter serviceB.

  2. Under Listener configuration, choose http2 for Protocol and specify 80 for Port.

  3. For Route name, enter serviceB.

  4. For Route type, choose http2.

  5. For Virtual node name under Target configuration, select serviceB and enter 100 for Weight.

  6. Under Match configuration, choose a Method.

  7. To continue, choose Next.

AWS CLI

  1. Create a virtual router.

    1. Create a file named create-virtual-router.json with the following contents:

      {
    "meshName": "apps",
    "spec": {
        "listeners": [
            {
                "portMapping": {
                    "port": 80,
                    "protocol": "http2"
                }
            }
        ]
    },
    "virtualRouterName": "serviceB"
}

    2. Create the virtual router with the create-virtual-router command using the JSON file as input.

      aws appmesh create-virtual-router --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-router.json

  2. Create a route.

    1. Create a file named create-route.json with the following contents:

      {
    "meshName" : "apps",
    "routeName" : "serviceB",
    "spec" : {
        "httpRoute" : {
            "action" : {
                "weightedTargets" : [
                    {
                        "virtualNode" : "serviceB",
                        "weight" : 100
                    }
                ]
            },
            "match" : {
                "prefix" : "/"
            }
        }
    },
    "virtualRouterName" : "serviceB"
}

    2. Create the route with the create-route command using the JSON file as input.

      aws appmesh create-route --cli-input-json file://create-route.json

Step 4: Review and create

Review the settings against the previous instructions.

AWS Management Console

Choose Edit if you need to make changes in any section. Once you are satisfied with the settings, choose Create mesh.

The Status screen shows you all of the mesh resources that were created. You can see the created resources in the console by selecting View mesh.

AWS CLI

Review the settings of the mesh you created with the describe-mesh command.

aws appmesh describe-mesh --mesh-name apps

Review the settings of the virtual service that you created with the describe-virtual-service command.

aws appmesh describe-virtual-service --mesh-name apps --virtual-service-name serviceb.apps.local

Review the settings of the virtual node that you created with the describe-virtual-node command.

aws appmesh describe-virtual-node --mesh-name apps --virtual-node-name serviceB

Review the settings of the virtual router that you created with the describe-virtual-router command.

aws appmesh describe-virtual-router --mesh-name apps --virtual-router-name serviceB

Review the settings of the route that you created with the describe-route command.

aws appmesh describe-route --mesh-name apps \
    --virtual-router-name serviceB  --route-name serviceB

Step 5: Create additional resources

To complete the scenario, you need to:

  • Create one virtual node named serviceBv2 and another named serviceA. Both virtual nodes listen for requests over HTTP/2 port 80. For the serviceA virtual node, configure a backend of serviceb.apps.local. All outbound traffic from the serviceA virtual node is sent to the virtual service named serviceb.apps.local. Though not covered in this guide, you can also specify a file path to write access logs to for a virtual node.

  • Create one additional virtual service named servicea.apps.local, which sends all traffic directly to the serviceA virtual node.

  • Update the serviceB route that you created in a previous step to send 75 percent of its traffic to the serviceB virtual node and 25 percent of its traffic to the serviceBv2 virtual node. Over time, you can continue to modify the weights until serviceBv2 receives 100 percent of the traffic. Once all traffic is sent to serviceBv2, you can shut down and discontinue the serviceB virtual node and actual service. As you change weights, your code does not require any modification, because the serviceb.apps.local virtual and actual service names don't change. Recall that the serviceb.apps.local virtual service sends traffic to the virtual router, which routes the traffic to the virtual nodes. The service discovery names for the virtual nodes can be changed at any time.

AWS Management Console

  1. In the left navigation pane, select Meshes.

  2. Select the apps mesh that you created in a previous step.

  3. In the left navigation pane, select Virtual nodes.

  4. Choose Create virtual node.

  5. For Virtual node name, enter serviceBv2, for Service discovery method, choose DNS, and for DNS hostname, enter servicebv2.apps.local.

  6. For Listener configuration, select http2 for Protocol and enter 80 for Port.

  7. Choose Create virtual node.

  8. Choose Create virtual node again. Enter serviceA for the Virtual node name. For Service discovery method, choose DNS, and for DNS hostname, enter servicea.apps.local.

  9. For Enter a virtual service name under New backend, enter serviceb.apps.local.

  10. Under Listener configuration, choose http2 for Protocol, enter 80 for Port, and then choose Create virtual node.

  11. In the left navigation pane, select Virtual routers and then select the serviceB virtual router from the list.

  12. Under Routes, select the route named ServiceB that you created in a previous step, and choose Edit.

  13. Under Targets, Virtual node name, change the value of Weight for serviceB to 75.

  14. Choose Add target, choose serviceBv2 from the dropdown list, and set the value of Weight to 25.

  15. Choose Save.

  16. In the left navigation pane, select Virtual services and then choose Create virtual service.

  17. Enter servicea.apps.local for Virtual service name, select Virtual node for Provider, select serviceA for Virtual node, and then choose Create virtual service.

AWS CLI

  1. Create the serviceBv2 virtual node.

    1. Create a file named create-virtual-node-servicebv2.json with the following contents:

      {
    "meshName": "apps",
    "spec": {
        "listeners": [
            {
                "portMapping": {
                    "port": 80,
                    "protocol": "http2"
                }
            }
        ],
        "serviceDiscovery": {
            "dns": {
                "hostname": "serviceBv2.apps.local"
            }
        }
    },
    "virtualNodeName": "serviceBv2"
}

    2. Create the virtual node.

      aws appmesh create-virtual-node --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-node-servicebv2.json

  2. Create the serviceA virtual node.

    1. Create a file named create-virtual-node-servicea.json with the following contents:

      {
   "meshName" : "apps",
   "spec" : {
      "backends" : [
         {
            "virtualService" : {
               "virtualServiceName" : "serviceb.apps.local"
            }
         }
      ],
      "listeners" : [
         {
            "portMapping" : {
               "port" : 80,
               "protocol" : "http2"
            }
         }
      ],
      "serviceDiscovery" : {
         "dns" : {
            "hostname" : "servicea.apps.local"
         }
      }
   },
   "virtualNodeName" : "serviceA"
}

    2. Create the virtual node.

      aws appmesh create-virtual-node --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-node-servicea.json

  3. Update the serviceb.apps.local virtual service that you created in a previous step to send its traffic to the serviceB virtual router. When the virtual service was originally created, it did not send traffic anywhere, since the serviceB virtual router had not been created yet.

    1. Create a file named update-virtual-service.json with the following contents:

      {
   "meshName" : "apps",
   "spec" : {
      "provider" : {
         "virtualRouter" : {
            "virtualRouterName" : "serviceB"
         }
      }
   },
   "virtualServiceName" : "serviceb.apps.local"
}

    2. Update the virtual service with the update-virtual-service command.

      aws appmesh update-virtual-service --cli-input-json file://update-virtual-service.json

  4. Update the serviceB route that you created in a previous step.

    1. Create a file named update-route.json with the following contents:

      {
   "meshName" : "apps",
   "routeName" : "serviceB",
   "spec" : {
      "http2Route" : {
         "action" : {
            "weightedTargets" : [
               {
                  "virtualNode" : "serviceB",
                  "weight" : 75
               },
               {
                  "virtualNode" : "serviceBv2",
                  "weight" : 25
               }
            ]
         },
         "match" : {
            "prefix" : "/"
         }
      }
   },
   "virtualRouterName" : "serviceB"
}

    2. Update the route with the update-route command.

      aws appmesh update-route --cli-input-json file://update-route.json

  5. Create the serviceA virtual service.

    1. Create a file named create-virtual-servicea.json with the following contents:

      {
   "meshName" : "apps",
   "spec" : {
      "provider" : {
         "virtualNode" : {
            "virtualNodeName" : "serviceA"
         }
      }
   },
   "virtualServiceName" : "servicea.apps.local"
}

    2. Create the virtual service.

      aws appmesh create-virtual-service --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-servicea.json
Mesh summary

Before you created the service mesh, you had three actual services named servicea.apps.local, serviceb.apps.local, and servicebv2.apps.local. In addition to the actual services, you now have a service mesh that contains the following resources that represent the actual services:

  • Two virtual services. The proxy sends all traffic from the servicea.apps.local virtual service to the serviceb.apps.local virtual service through a virtual router.

  • Three virtual nodes named serviceA, serviceB, and serviceBv2. The Envoy proxy uses the service discovery information configured for the virtual nodes to look up the IP addresses of the actual services.

  • One virtual router with one route that instructs the Envoy proxy to route 75 percent of inbound traffic to the serviceB virtual node and 25 percent of the traffic to the serviceBv2 virtual node.

Step 6: Update services

After creating your mesh, you need to complete the following tasks:

  • Authorize the Envoy proxy that you deploy with each Amazon ECS task to read the configuration of one or more virtual nodes. For more information about how to authorize the proxy, see Proxy authorization.

  • Update each of your existing Amazon ECS task definitions to use the Envoy proxy.

Credentials

The Envoy container requires AWS Identity and Access Management credentials for signing requests that are sent to the App Mesh service. For Amazon ECS tasks deployed with the Amazon EC2 launch type, the credentials can come from the instance role or from a task IAM role. Amazon ECS tasks deployed with Fargate on Linux containers don't have access to the Amazon EC2 metadata server that supplies instance IAM profile credentials. To supply the credentials, you must attach an IAM task role to any tasks deployed with the Fargate on Linux containers type.

If a task is deployed with the Amazon EC2 launch type and access is blocked to the Amazon EC2 metadata server, as described in the Important annotation in IAM Role for Tasks, then a task IAM role must also be attached to the task. The role that you assign to the instance or task must have an IAM policy attached to it as described in Proxy authorization.

To update your task definitions using the AWS Management Console

The following steps only show updating the taskB task for the scenario. You also need to update the taskBv2 and taskA tasks by changing the values appropriately.

  1. Open the console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ecs/v2.

  2. To access the classic classic Amazon ECS console, in the upper-left toggle New ECS Experience.

    Important

    App Mesh integration is only available in the classic Amazon ECS console.

  3. From the navigation bar, choose the Region that contains your task definition.

  4. In the navigation pane, choose Task Definitions.

  5. On the Task Definitions page, select the box to the left of the task definition to revise. From the pre-requisites and previous steps, you might have task definitions named taskA, taskB, and taskBv2. Select taskB and choose Create new revision.

  6. On the Create new revision of Task Definition page, make the following changes to enable App Mesh integration.

    1. For Service Integration, to configure the parameters for App Mesh integration choose Enable App Mesh integration and then do the following:

      1. For Application container name, choose the container name to use for the App Mesh application. This container must already be defined within the task definition.

      2. For Envoy image, complete the following task and enter the value that is returned.

        • All supported Regions other than me-south-1, ap-east-1, ap-southeast-3, eu-south-1, il-central-1, and af-south-1. You can replace Region-code with any Region other than me-south-1, ap-east-1, ap-southeast-3, eu-south-1, il-central-1, and af-south-1. 

          840364872350.dkr.ecr.region-code.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • me-south-1 Region:

          772975370895.dkr.ecr.me-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • ap-east-1 Region:

          856666278305.dkr.ecr.ap-east-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • ap-southeast-3 Region:

          909464085924.dkr.ecr.ap-southeast-3.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • eu-south-1 Region:

          422531588944.dkr.ecr.eu-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • il-central-1 Region:

          564877687649.dkr.ecr.il-central-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • af-south-1 Region:

          924023996002.dkr.ecr.af-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

        • Public repository

          public.ecr.aws/appmesh/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod
        Important

        Only version v1.9.0.0-prod or later is supported for use with App Mesh.

      3. For Mesh name, choose the App Mesh service mesh to use. In this topic, the name of the mesh that was created is apps.

      4. For Virtual node name, choose the App Mesh virtual node to use. For example, for the taskB task, you would choose the serviceB virtual node that you created in a previous step.

      5. The value for Virtual node port is pre-populated with the listener port that you specified when you created the virtual node.

      6. Choose Apply, and then choose Confirm. A new Envoy proxy container is created and added to the task definition, and the settings to support the container are also created. The Envoy proxy container then pre-populates the App Mesh Proxy Configuration settings for the next step.

    2. For Proxy Configuration, verify all of the pre-populated values.

    3. For Network Mode, make sure that awsvpc is selected. To learn more about the awsvpc network mode, see Task Networking with the awsvpc Network Mode.

  7. Choose Create.

  8. Update your service with the updated task definition. For more information, see Updating a service.

The console creates the task definition's json specification. You can modify some of the settings, but not others. For more information, expand the following section.

Proxy configuration

To configure your Amazon ECS service to use App Mesh, your service's task definition must have the following proxy configuration section. Set the proxy configuration type to APPMESH and the containerName to envoy. Set the following property values accordingly.

IgnoredUID

The Envoy proxy doesn't route traffic from processes that use this user ID. You can choose any user ID that you want for this property value, but this ID must be the same as the user ID for the Envoy container in your task definition. This matching allows Envoy to ignore its own traffic without using the proxy. Our examples use 1337 for historical purposes.

ProxyIngressPort

This is the inbound port for the Envoy proxy container. Set this value to 15000.

ProxyEgressPort

This is the outbound port for the Envoy proxy container. Set this value to 15001.

AppPorts

Specify any inbound ports that your application containers listen on. In this example, the application container listens on port 9080. The port that you specify must match the port configured on the virtual node listener.

EgressIgnoredIPs

Envoy doesn't proxy traffic to these IP addresses. Set this value to 169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254, which ignores the Amazon EC2 metadata server and the Amazon ECS task metadata endpoint. The metadata endpoint provides IAM roles for tasks credentials. You can add additional addresses.

EgressIgnoredPorts

You can add a comma separated list of ports. Envoy doesn't proxy traffic to these ports. Even if you list no ports, port 22 is ignored.

Note

The maximum number of outbound ports that can be ignored is 15.

"proxyConfiguration": {
	"type": "APPMESH",
	"containerName": "envoy",
	"properties": [{
			"name": "IgnoredUID",
			"value": "1337"
		},
		{
			"name": "ProxyIngressPort",
			"value": "15000"
		},
		{
			"name": "ProxyEgressPort",
			"value": "15001"
		},
		{
			"name": "AppPorts",
			"value": "9080"
		},
		{
			"name": "EgressIgnoredIPs",
			"value": "169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254"
		},
		{
			"name": "EgressIgnoredPorts",
			"value": "22"
		}
	]
}
Application container Envoy dependency

The application containers in your task definitions must wait for the Envoy proxy to bootstrap and start before they can start. To make sure this happens, you set a dependsOn section in each application container definition to wait for the Envoy container to report as HEALTHY. The following code shows an application container definition example with this dependency. All of the properties in the following example are required. Some of the property values are also required, but some are replaceable.

{
	"name": "appName",
	"image": "appImage",
	"portMappings": [{
		"containerPort": 9080,
		"hostPort": 9080,
		"protocol": "tcp"
	}],
	"essential": true,
	"dependsOn": [{
		"containerName": "envoy",
		"condition": "HEALTHY"
	}]
}

Envoy container definition

Your Amazon ECS task definitions must contain an App Mesh Envoy container image.

  • All supported Regions other than me-south-1, ap-east-1, ap-southeast-3, eu-south-1, il-central-1, and af-south-1. You can replace Region-code with any Region other than me-south-1, ap-east-1, ap-southeast-3, eu-south-1, il-central-1, and af-south-1. 

    840364872350.dkr.ecr.region-code.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • me-south-1 Region:

    772975370895.dkr.ecr.me-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • ap-east-1 Region:

    856666278305.dkr.ecr.ap-east-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • ap-southeast-3 Region:

    909464085924.dkr.ecr.ap-southeast-3.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • eu-south-1 Region:

    422531588944.dkr.ecr.eu-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • il-central-1 Region:

    564877687649.dkr.ecr.il-central-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • af-south-1 Region:

    924023996002.dkr.ecr.af-south-1.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod

  • Public repository

    public.ecr.aws/appmesh/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod
Important

Only version v1.9.0.0-prod or later is supported for use with App Mesh.

You must use the App Mesh Envoy container image until the Envoy project team merges changes that support App Mesh. For additional details, see the GitHub roadmap issue.

All of the properties in the following example are required. Some of the property values are also required, but some are replaceable.

Note

  • The Envoy container definition must be marked as essential.

  • We recommend allocating 512 CPU units and at least 64 MiB of memory to the Envoy container. On Fargate the lowest you will be able to set is 1024 MiB of memory.

  • The virtual node name for the Amazon ECS service must be set to the value of the APPMESH_RESOURCE_ARN property. This property requires version 1.15.0 or later of the Envoy image. For more information, see Envoy image.

  • The value for the user setting must match the IgnoredUID value from the task definition proxy configuration. In this example, we use 1337.

  • The health check shown here waits for the Envoy container to bootstrap properly before reporting to Amazon ECS that the Envoy container is healthy and ready for the application containers to start.

  • By default, App Mesh uses the name of the resource you specified in APPMESH_RESOURCE_ARN when Envoy is referring to itself in metrics and traces. You can override this behavior by setting the APPMESH_RESOURCE_CLUSTER environment variable with your own name. This property requires version 1.15.0 or later of the Envoy image. For more information, see Envoy image.

The following code shows an Envoy container definition example.

{
	"name": "envoy",
	"image": "840364872350.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod",
	"essential": true,
	"environment": [{
		"name": "APPMESH_RESOURCE_ARN",
		"value": "arn:aws:appmesh:us-west-2:111122223333:mesh/apps/virtualNode/serviceB"
	}],
	"healthCheck": {
		"command": [
			"CMD-SHELL",
			"curl -s http://localhost:9901/server_info | grep state | grep -q LIVE"
		],
		"startPeriod": 10,
		"interval": 5,
		"timeout": 2,
		"retries": 3
	},
	"user": "1337"
}
Example task definitions

The following example Amazon ECS task definitions show how to merge the examples from above into a task definition for taskB. Examples are provided for creating tasks for both Amazon ECS launch types with or without using AWS X-Ray. Change the replaceable values, as appropriate, to create task definitions for the tasks named taskBv2 and taskA from the scenario. Substitute your mesh name and virtual node name for the APPMESH_RESOURCE_ARN value and a list of ports that your application listens on for the proxy configuration AppPorts value. By default, App Mesh uses the name of the resource you specified in APPMESH_RESOURCE_ARN when Envoy is referring to itself in metrics and traces. You can override this behavior by setting the APPMESH_RESOURCE_CLUSTER environment variable with your own name. All of the properties in the following examples are required. Some of the property values are also required, but some are replaceable.

If you're running an Amazon ECS task as described in the Credentials section, then you need to add an existing task IAM role, to the examples.

Important

Fargate must use a port value greater than 1024.

Example JSON for Amazon ECS task definition - Fargate on Linux containers
{
   
   "family" : "taskB",
   "memory" : "1024",
   "cpu" : "0.5 vCPU",
   "proxyConfiguration" : {
      "containerName" : "envoy",
      "properties" : [
         {
            "name" : "ProxyIngressPort",
            "value" : "15000"
         },
         {
            "name" : "AppPorts",
            "value" : "9080"
         },
         {
            "name" : "EgressIgnoredIPs",
            "value" : "169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254"
         },
         {
            "name": "EgressIgnoredPorts",
            "value": "22"
         },
         {
            "name" : "IgnoredUID",
            "value" : "1337"
         },
         {
            "name" : "ProxyEgressPort",
            "value" : "15001"
         }
      ],
      "type" : "APPMESH"
   },
   "containerDefinitions" : [
      {
         "name" : "appName",
         "image" : "appImage",
         "portMappings" : [
            {
               "containerPort" : 9080,
               "protocol" : "tcp"
            }
         ],
         "essential" : true,
         "dependsOn" : [
            {
               "containerName" : "envoy",
               "condition" : "HEALTHY"
            }
         ]
      },
      {         
         "name" : "envoy",
         "image" : "840364872350.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod",
         "essential" : true,
         "environment" : [
            {
               "name" : "APPMESH_VIRTUAL_NODE_NAME",
               "value" : "mesh/apps/virtualNode/serviceB"
            }
         ],
         "healthCheck" : {
            "command" : [
               "CMD-SHELL",
               "curl -s http://localhost:9901/server_info | grep state | grep -q LIVE"
            ],
            "interval" : 5,
            "retries" : 3,
            "startPeriod" : 10,
            "timeout" : 2
         },
         "memory" : "500",
         "user" : "1337"
      }
   ],
   "requiresCompatibilities" : [ "FARGATE" ],
   "taskRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskRole",
   "executionRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole",
   "networkMode" : "awsvpc"
}
Example JSON for Amazon ECS task definition with AWS X-Ray - Fargate on Linux containers

X-Ray allows you to collect data about requests that an application serves and provides tools that you can use to visualize traffic flow. Using the X-Ray driver for Envoy enables Envoy to report tracing information to X-Ray. You can enable X-Ray tracing using the Envoy configuration. Based on the configuration, Envoy sends tracing data to the X-Ray daemon running as a sidecar container and the daemon forwards the traces to the X-Ray service. Once the traces are published to X-Ray, you can use the X-Ray console to visualize the service call graph and request trace details. The following JSON represents a task definition to enable X-Ray integration.

{
   
   
   "family" : "taskB",
   "memory" : "1024",
   "cpu" : "512",
   "proxyConfiguration" : {
      "containerName" : "envoy",
      "properties" : [
         {
            "name" : "ProxyIngressPort",
            "value" : "15000"
         },
         {
            "name" : "AppPorts",
            "value" : "9080"
         },
         {
            "name" : "EgressIgnoredIPs",
            "value" : "169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254"
         },
         {
            "name": "EgressIgnoredPorts",
            "value": "22"
         },
         {
            "name" : "IgnoredUID",
            "value" : "1337"
         },
         {
            "name" : "ProxyEgressPort",
            "value" : "15001"
         }
      ],
      "type" : "APPMESH"
   },
   "containerDefinitions" : [
      {
         "name" : "appName",
         "image" : "appImage",
         "portMappings" : [
            {
               "containerPort" : 9080,
               "protocol" : "tcp"
            }
         ],
         "essential" : true,
         "dependsOn" : [
            {
               "containerName" : "envoy",
               "condition" : "HEALTHY"
            }
         ]
      },
      {
         
         "name" : "envoy",
         "image" : "840364872350.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod",
         "essential" : true,
         "environment" : [
            {
               "name" : "APPMESH_VIRTUAL_NODE_NAME",
               "value" : "mesh/apps/virtualNode/serviceB"
            },
            {
               "name": "ENABLE_ENVOY_XRAY_TRACING",
               "value": "1"
            }
         ],
         "healthCheck" : {
            "command" : [
               "CMD-SHELL",
               "curl -s http://localhost:9901/server_info | grep state | grep -q LIVE"
            ],
            "interval" : 5,
            "retries" : 3,
            "startPeriod" : 10,
            "timeout" : 2
         },
         "memory" : "500",
         "user" : "1337"
      },
      {
         "name" : "xray-daemon",
         "image" : "amazon/aws-xray-daemon",
         "user" : "1337",
         "essential" : true,
         "cpu" : "32",
         "memoryReservation" : "256",
         "portMappings" : [
            {
               "containerPort" : 2000,
               "protocol" : "udp"
            }
         ]
      }
   ],
   "requiresCompatibilities" : [ "FARGATE" ],
   "taskRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskRole",
   "executionRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole",
   "networkMode" : "awsvpc"
}
Example JSON for Amazon ECS task definition - EC2 launch type
{
  "family": "taskB",
  "memory": "256",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "type": "APPMESH",
    "containerName": "envoy",
    "properties": [
      {
        "name": "IgnoredUID",
        "value": "1337"
      },
      {
        "name": "ProxyIngressPort",
        "value": "15000"
      },
      {
        "name": "ProxyEgressPort",
        "value": "15001"
      },
      {
        "name": "AppPorts",
        "value": "9080"
      },
      {
        "name": "EgressIgnoredIPs",
        "value": "169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254"
      },
      {
        "name": "EgressIgnoredPorts",
        "value": "22"
      }
    ]
  },
  "containerDefinitions": [
    {
      "name": "appName",
      "image": "appImage",
      "portMappings": [
        {
          "containerPort": 9080,
          "hostPort": 9080,
          "protocol": "tcp"
        }
      ],
      "essential": true,
      "dependsOn": [
        {
          "containerName": "envoy",
          "condition": "HEALTHY"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "envoy",
      "image": "840364872350.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod",
      "essential": true,
      "environment": [
        {
          "name": "APPMESH_VIRTUAL_NODE_NAME",
          "value": "mesh/apps/virtualNode/serviceB"
        }
      ],
      "healthCheck": {
        "command": [
          "CMD-SHELL",
          "curl -s http://localhost:9901/server_info | grep state | grep -q LIVE"
        ],
        "startPeriod": 10,
        "interval": 5,
        "timeout": 2,
        "retries": 3
      },
      "user": "1337"
    }
  ],
  "requiresCompatibilities" : [ "EC2" ],
  "taskRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskRole",
  "executionRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole",
  "networkMode": "awsvpc"
}
Example JSON for Amazon ECS task definition with AWS X-Ray - EC2 launch type
{
  "family": "taskB",
  "memory": "256",
   "cpu" : "1024",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "type": "APPMESH",
    "containerName": "envoy",
    "properties": [
      {
        "name": "IgnoredUID",
        "value": "1337"
      },
      {
        "name": "ProxyIngressPort",
        "value": "15000"
      },
      {
        "name": "ProxyEgressPort",
        "value": "15001"
      },
      {
        "name": "AppPorts",
        "value": "9080"
      },
      {
        "name": "EgressIgnoredIPs",
        "value": "169.254.170.2,169.254.169.254"
      },
      {
        "name": "EgressIgnoredPorts",
        "value": "22"
      }
    ]
  },
  "containerDefinitions": [
    {
      "name": "appName",
      "image": "appImage",
      "portMappings": [
        {
          "containerPort": 9080,
          "hostPort": 9080,
          "protocol": "tcp"
        }
      ],
      "essential": true,
      "dependsOn": [
        {
          "containerName": "envoy",
          "condition": "HEALTHY"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "envoy",
      "image": "840364872350.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/aws-appmesh-envoy:v1.27.2.0-prod",
      "essential": true,
      "environment": [
        {
          "name": "APPMESH_VIRTUAL_NODE_NAME",
          "value": "mesh/apps/virtualNode/serviceB"
        },
        {
         "name": "ENABLE_ENVOY_XRAY_TRACING",
         "value": "1"
        }
      ],
      "healthCheck": {
        "command": [
          "CMD-SHELL",
          "curl -s http://localhost:9901/server_info | grep state | grep -q LIVE"
        ],
        "startPeriod": 10,
        "interval": 5,
        "timeout": 2,
        "retries": 3
      },
      "user": "1337"
    },
    {
      "name": "xray-daemon",
      "image": "amazon/aws-xray-daemon",
      "user": "1337",
      "essential": true,
      "cpu": 32,
      "memoryReservation": 256,
      "portMappings": [
        {
          "containerPort": 2000,
          "protocol": "udp"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "requiresCompatibilities" : [ "EC2" ],
  "taskRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskRole",
  "executionRoleArn" : "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole",
  "networkMode": "awsvpc"
}

Advanced topics

Canary deployments using App Mesh

Canary deployments and releases help you switch traffic between an old version of an application and a newly deployed version. It also monitors the health of the newly deployed version. If there are any problems with the new version, the canary deployment can automatically switch traffic back to the old version. Canary deployments give you the ability to switch traffic between application versions with more control.

For more information about how to implement canary deployments for Amazon ECS using App Mesh, see Create a pipeline with canary deployments for Amazon ECS using App Mesh

Note

For more examples and walkthroughs for App Mesh, see the App Mesh examples repository.