Error You must specify a region when running command aws ecs list-container-instances

Question

I am trying to use aws container service as per the documentation in http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/ECS_GetStarted.html

The below error is th

Answer 1

"You must specify a region" is a not an ECS specific error, it can happen with any AWS API/CLI/SDK command.

For the CLI, either set the AWS_DEFAULT_REGION environment variable. e.g.

export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1

or add it into the command (you will need this every time you use a region-specific command)

AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1 aws ecs list-container-instances --cluster default

or set it in the CLI configuration file: ~/.aws/config

[default]
region=us-east-1

or pass/override it with the CLI call:

aws ecs list-container-instances --cluster default --region us-east-1