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ConsulClient.json
ConsulClient.json
 
 
ConsulServer.json
ConsulServer.json
 
 
README.md
README.md
 
 

README.md

Consul

Consul is a tool used for service discovery and configuration. It runs in a server mode or client mode. In an ECS cluster it is recommended to run 1, 3 or 5 server instances depending on high availability requirements as well as the cluster size. The 1 server mode configuration means the server is a single point of failure. It may be sufficient for development environments. For environments where availability is key 3 servers are recommended. Very large clusters may require 5 servers to run in the ECS cluster.
The server and client tasks need to run individually on each node. There should not be a server and client tasks running on the same node within the ECS cluster.
For example, in a 10 node cluster you would run 3 server tasks and 7 client tasks.

Using these Task Definitions

These task definitions pull the maintained Consul image from GitHub.
There are 2 Task Definitions; one for Consul server and one for Consul client.
The Task Definitions also create CloudWatch logs. The region specified in the Task Definition for CloudWatch logs is us-east-2. The value can be changed to be used in different AWS regions.
There are some Task Definition constraints required in order to make sure only one of the Consul server or client is deployed on each ECS node.

Steps to Run:

  • Have an active AWS account.

  • Create an Amazon ECS cluster.

  • Tag the insatnces in the cluster with:
    key=consul value=member

  • These task definitions are templates that can then be pasted into the AWS console JSON input area or saved to a file and used with the AWS CLI. To create the Task Definitions using CLI run the following commands.
    For Consul server:
    aws ecs register-task-definition --cli-input-json file://<path_to_json_file>/ConsulServer.json
    For Consul client:
    aws ecs register-task-definition --cli-input-json file://<path_to_json_file>/ConsulClient.json

  • Run the task definition as a Task or Service. There are some constraints that need to be set to run these tasks as the Consul server and client should not run on the same host.
    Consul server:
    For the "Task Placement" option choose: "One Task Per Host"
    Consul client:
    For the "Task Placement" option choose: "Custom"
    In the "Constraint" choose "DistinctInstance". Add another constraint and for the second constraint choose "MemberOf" and for the expression add not(task:group == task:consulServer)

More Info

What is a Task Definition?

A task definition is required to run Docker containers in Amazon ECS. Some of the parameters you can specify in a task definition include:

  • Which Docker images to use with the containers in your task.
  • How much CPU and memory to use with each container.
  • The Docker networking mode to use for the containers in your task.

Please see the Amazon ECS Documentation for more information on writing and running Task Definitions.

About Amazon ECS

Amazon EC2 Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a container management service that supports Docker containers and allows you to easily run applications on a managed cluster of Amazon EC2 instances. Amazon ECS eliminates the need for you to install, operate, and scale your own cluster management infrastructure. Learn more here.

Getting Help