In this post I demonstrate a simple container deployment setup; a Jenkins pipeline to Elastic Container Registry (ECR) and Fargate on Elastic Container Service (ECS). I assume you have Jenkins running, with a pipeline and Git repo webhook tied to it. Besides the default Jenkins plugins, you’ll need the Pipeline Utiliy Steps.

Also I assume you already have a ECR repository, a ECS Fargate cluster and an AWS service account with credentials. I decided not to use the AWS credentials plugin since it is too implicit. So instead, set regular username & password:

aws-dredentials

Put the following taskdef_template.json and Jenkinsfile in the top directory of your project:

the taskdef_template.json file:

{
  "family": "%TASK_FAMILY%",
  "networkMode": "awsvpc",
  "executionRoleArn": "%EXECUTION_ROLE_ARN%",
  "containerDefinitions": [
    {
      "image": "%REPOSITORY_URI%:%SHORT_COMMIT%",
      "name": "%SERVICE_NAME%",
      "cpu": 10,
      "memory": 256,
      "essential": true,
      "portMappings": [
        {
          "containerPort": 80,
          "hostPort": 80
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "requiresCompatibilities": ["FARGATE"],
  "cpu": "256",
  "memory": "512"
}

and the Jenkinsfile:

@Library('github.com/releaseworks/jenkinslib') _

pipeline {
  environment {
    REPOSITORY_URI = 'xxxxxxxxxxxx.dkr.ecr.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/container-app-demo'
    SERVICE_NAME = 'container-app-demo'
    TASK_FAMILY="container-app-demo" // at least one container needs to have the same name as the task definition
    DESIRED_COUNT="1"
    CLUSTER_NAME = "my-ECS-cluster"
    SHORT_COMMIT = "${GIT_COMMIT[0..7]}"
    AWS_ID = credentials("aws-key")
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "${env.AWS_ID_USR}"
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = "${env.AWS_ID_PSW}"
    AWS_DEFAULT_REGION = "eu-west-1"
    EXECUTION_ROLE_ARN = "arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/ecsTaskExecutionRole"
  }

    agent any

    stages {
        stage('Build image') {
            steps {
                script {
                    // Build image in the top directory
                    def dockerImage = docker.build("$REPOSITORY_URI", ".")
                }
            }
        }
        stage('Test') {
            steps {
                echo 'Testing..'
            }
        }
        stage('Publish Image to ECR') {
            steps{
                script {
                    withElasticContainerRegistry {
                        // Push to ECR
                        docker.image("$REPOSITORY_URI").push("$SHORT_COMMIT")
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        stage('Deploy Image to ECS') {
            steps{
                // prepare task definition file
                sh """sed -e "s;%REPOSITORY_URI%;${REPOSITORY_URI};g" -e "s;%SHORT_COMMIT%;${SHORT_COMMIT};g" -e "s;%TASK_FAMILY%;${TASK_FAMILY};g" -e "s;%SERVICE_NAME%;${SERVICE_NAME};g" -e "s;%EXECUTION_ROLE_ARN%;${EXECUTION_ROLE_ARN};g" taskdef_template.json > taskdef_${SHORT_COMMIT}.json"""
                script {
                    // Register task definition
                    AWS("ecs register-task-definition --output json --cli-input-json file://${WORKSPACE}/taskdef_${SHORT_COMMIT}.json > ${env.WORKSPACE}/temp.json")
                    def projects = readJSON file: "${env.WORKSPACE}/temp.json"
                    def TASK_REVISION = projects.taskDefinition.revision

                    // update service
                    AWS("ecs update-service --cluster ${CLUSTER_NAME} --service ${SERVICE_NAME} --task-definition ${TASK_FAMILY}:${TASK_REVISION} --desired-count ${DESIRED_COUNT}")
                }
            }
        }
        stage('Remove docker image') {
            steps{
                // Remove images
                sh "docker rmi $REPOSITORY_URI"
            }
        }
    }
}

Replace all the top values based on your own. The steps in the Jenkinsfile are quite straightforward:

  1. build the container based on the Dockerfile (you can change the path optionally);
  2. run some tests;
  3. Publish the image to the ECR repo;
  4. Create a new task definition with this new image and update the ECR service with this task definition.