AWS Elastic Container Service is one of the easiest platforms to get started on. With Waypoint's AWS ECS plugin, you'll only need an Elastic Container Registry to use Waypoint to quickly deploy an application.
»Prerequisites
You'll need to clone the examples repository, set up your AWS credentials, and create an Elastic Container Registry.
You'll be most comfortable if you have already used Waypoint to do a local deployment with our Get Started collection.
»Clone the examples repository
The code for this tutorial is in the hashicorp/waypoint-examples repository. Clone the repository with git.
$ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp/waypoint-examples.git
Change into the subdirectory for the AWS ECS project. This project uses NodeJS but the following instructions will work with any language that can be built with a cloud native buildpack.
$ cd waypoint-examples/aws-ecs/nodejs
»Create an Elastic Container Registry
To create an ECR repository, visit the ECR home page.
This example will deploy a project named waypoint-example in us-east-1 region. If you choose a different name or region, edit the Waypoint configuration to match.
After you create the registry, it will appear in the list of your container registries.
»Install local Waypoint server
When using ECS, the Waypoint server will run locally in Docker instead of continually in ECS.
Download the server image so that you can start a container with it.
$ docker pull hashicorp/waypoint:latest
Install the Waypoint server to your local Docker instance.
$ waypoint install --platform=docker -accept-tos
If you run into any errors, see the troubleshooting page which has instructions for resetting the Waypoint server in Docker.
»Explore waypoint.hcl
Open the
waypoint.hcl
file. In this section, you will explore the build and deploy steps for this
project.
The waypoint.hcl file uses the aws-ecr registry plugin during the build stage. The aws-ecr plugin uses your AWS credentials and internally builds the correct URL to the AWS API.
It is also possible to configure this manually with the docker plugin. Other
configuration options are listed in the plugin
documentation.
Other configuration options are listed in the plugin documentation.
build {
use "pack" {}
registry {
use "aws-ecr" {
region = "us-east-1"
repository = "waypoint-example"
tag = "latest"
}
}
}
Use the aws-ecr plugin for the deploy stage. You can specify the region, memory, and cpu as well as a count of how many instances to launch or a log_group to store the logs in a CloudWatch log group.
See the plugin documentation for other configuration options.
deploy {
use "aws-ecs" {
region = "us-east-1"
memory = "512"
}
}
The full waypoint.hcl looks like this.
project = "example-nodejs"
app "example-nodejs" {
labels = {
"service" = "example-nodejs",
"env" = "dev"
}
build {
use "pack" {}
registry {
use "aws-ecr" {
region = "us-east-1"
repository = "waypoint-example"
tag = "latest"
}
}
}
deploy {
use "aws-ecs" {
region = "us-east-1"
memory = "512"
}
}
}
»Initialize Waypoint
Initialize the project with the init command.
$ waypoint init
✓ Configuration file appears valid
✓ Connection to Waypoint server was successful
✓ Project "example-nodejs" and all apps are registered with the server.
✓ Plugins loaded and configured successfully
✓ Authentication requirements appear satisfied.
Project initialized!
You may now call 'waypoint up' to deploy your project or
commands such as 'waypoint build' to perform steps individually.
Read the troubleshooting page if you run into any errors.
»Build, deploy, and release the application
Deploy the application with up.
NOTE: This may take a few minutes to execute, especially if this is the first time that you push the image to the registry.
$ waypoint up
» Building...
» Deploying...
✓ Created new ECS cluster: waypoint
✓ Found existing IAM role to use: ecr-example-nodejs
✓ Created CloudWatchLogs group to store logs in: waypoint-logs
✓ Created ALB target group
✓ Created new ALB Listener
✓ Configured security group: example-nodejs-inbound-internal
✓ Created ECS Service (example-nodejs-24MX1ZSG9QC8Y4TJH, cluster-name: waypoint)
» Releasing...
The deploy was successful! A Waypoint deployment URL is shown below. This
can be used internally to check your deployment and is not meant for external
traffic. You can manage this hostname using "waypoint hostname."
Release URL: http://waypoint-ecs-example-nodejs-1945800883.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com
Deployment URL: https://personally-endless-lobster--v1.waypoint.run
Visit the Release URL or the Deployment URL to view the application running on ECS.
You can visit the ECS console to view the server side of the cluster.
The cluster also lists individual tasks.
»Destroy the instance
To deprovision the container, run destroy.
$ waypoint destroy
» Destroying releases...
» Destroying deployments...
Destroy successful!
If there is an error, try again after a few seconds.
NOTE: The destroy command will not delete container images in the registry or the ECS cluster itself. Visit the ECR console to manually delete the entire registry or individual container images.
»Next steps
Learn more about Waypoint by following along with the other tutorials for Azure, Google Cloud, and others, or read the documentation for other Waypoint plugins.