How do I deploy updated Docker images to Amazon ECS tasks?

Question

What is the right approach to make my Amazon ECS tasks update their Docker images, once said images have been updated in the corresponding registry?

Answer 1

I created a script for deploying updated Docker images to a staging service on ECS, so that the corresponding task definition refers to the current versions of the Docker images. I don't know for sure if I'm following best practices, so feedback would be welcome.

For the script to work, you need either a spare ECS instance or a deploymentConfiguration.minimumHealthyPercent value so that ECS can steal an instance to deploy the updated task definition to.

My algorithm is like this:

1. Tag Docker images corresponding to containers in the task definition with the Git revision.
2. Push the Docker image tags to the corresponding registries.
3. Deregister old task definitions in the task definition family.
4. Register new task definition, now referring to Docker images tagged with current Git revisions.
5. Update service to use new task definition.

My code pasted below:

deploy-ecs

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import subprocess
import sys
import os.path
import json
import re
import argparse
import tempfile

_root_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.normpath(os.path.dirname(__file__)))
sys.path.insert(0, _root_dir)
from _common import *


def _run_ecs_command(args):
    run_command(['aws', 'ecs', ] + args)


def _get_ecs_output(args):
    return json.loads(run_command(['aws', 'ecs', ] + args, return_stdout=True))


def _tag_image(tag, qualified_image_name, purge):
    log_info('Tagging image \'{}\' as \'{}\'...'.format(
        qualified_image_name, tag))
    log_info('Pulling image from registry in order to tag...')
    run_command(
        ['docker', 'pull', qualified_image_name], capture_stdout=False)
    run_command(['docker', 'tag', '-f', qualified_image_name, '{}:{}'.format(
        qualified_image_name, tag), ])
    log_info('Pushing image tag to registry...')
    run_command(['docker', 'push', '{}:{}'.format(
        qualified_image_name, tag), ], capture_stdout=False)
    if purge:
        log_info('Deleting pulled image...')
        run_command(
            ['docker', 'rmi', '{}:latest'.format(qualified_image_name), ])
        run_command(
            ['docker', 'rmi', '{}:{}'.format(qualified_image_name, tag), ])


def _register_task_definition(task_definition_fpath, purge):
    with open(task_definition_fpath, 'rt') as f:
        task_definition = json.loads(f.read())

    task_family = task_definition['family']

    tag = run_command([
        'git', 'rev-parse', '--short', 'HEAD', ], return_stdout=True).strip()
    for container_def in task_definition['containerDefinitions']:
        image_name = container_def['image']
        _tag_image(tag, image_name, purge)
        container_def['image'] = '{}:{}'.format(image_name, tag)

    log_info('Finding existing task definitions of family \'{}\'...'.format(
        task_family
    ))
    existing_task_definitions = _get_ecs_output(['list-task-definitions', ])[
        'taskDefinitionArns']
    for existing_task_definition in [
        td for td in existing_task_definitions if re.match(
            r'arn:aws:ecs+:[^:]+:[^:]+:task-definition/{}:\d+'.format(
                task_family),
            td)]:
        log_info('Deregistering task definition \'{}\'...'.format(
            existing_task_definition))
        _run_ecs_command([
            'deregister-task-definition', '--task-definition',
            existing_task_definition, ])

    with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='wt', suffix='.json') as f:
        task_def_str = json.dumps(task_definition)
        f.write(task_def_str)
        f.flush()
        log_info('Registering task definition...')
        result = _get_ecs_output([
            'register-task-definition',
            '--cli-input-json', 'file://{}'.format(f.name),
        ])

    return '{}:{}'.format(task_family, result['taskDefinition']['revision'])


def _update_service(service_fpath, task_def_name):
    with open(service_fpath, 'rt') as f:
        service_config = json.loads(f.read())
    services = _get_ecs_output(['list-services', ])[
        'serviceArns']
    for service in [s for s in services if re.match(
        r'arn:aws:ecs:[^:]+:[^:]+:service/{}'.format(
            service_config['serviceName']),
        s
    )]:
        log_info('Updating service with new task definition...')
        _run_ecs_command([
            'update-service', '--service', service,
            '--task-definition', task_def_name,
        ])


parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
    description="""Deploy latest Docker image to staging server.
The task definition file is used as the task definition, whereas
the service file is used to configure the service.
""")
parser.add_argument(
    'task_definition_file', help='Your task definition JSON file')
parser.add_argument('service_file', help='Your service JSON file')
parser.add_argument(
    '--purge_image', action='store_true', default=False,
    help='Purge Docker image after tagging?')
args = parser.parse_args()

task_definition_file = os.path.abspath(args.task_definition_file)
service_file = os.path.abspath(args.service_file)

os.chdir(_root_dir)

task_def_name = _register_task_definition(
    task_definition_file, args.purge_image)
_update_service(service_file, task_def_name)

_common.py

import sys
import subprocess


__all__ = ['log_info', 'handle_error', 'run_command', ]


def log_info(msg):
    sys.stdout.write('* {}\n'.format(msg))
    sys.stdout.flush()


def handle_error(msg):
    sys.stderr.write('* {}\n'.format(msg))
    sys.exit(1)


def run_command(
        command, ignore_error=False, return_stdout=False, capture_stdout=True):
    if not isinstance(command, (list, tuple)):
        command = [command, ]
    command_str = ' '.join(command)
    log_info('Running command {}'.format(command_str))
    try:
        if capture_stdout:
            stdout = subprocess.check_output(command)
        else:
            subprocess.check_call(command)
            stdout = None
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as err:
        if not ignore_error:
            handle_error('Command failed: {}'.format(err))
    else:
        return stdout.decode() if return_stdout else None