docker-compose No such command: convert error - amazon-web-services

Question

I'm trying to follow this tutorial on AWS ECS integration that mentions the Docker command docker compose convert that is supposed to generate a AWS CloudFormation template.
However, when I run this command, it doesn't appear to exist.
$ docker-compose convert
No such command: convert
#...
$ docker compose convert
docker: 'compose' is not a docker command.
See 'docker --help'
$ docker context create ecs myecscontext
"docker context create" requires exactly 1 argument.
See 'docker context create --help'.
Usage: docker context create [OPTIONS] CONTEXT
Create a context
$ docker --version
Docker version 19.03.13, build 4484c46
$ docker-compose --version
docker-compose version 1.25.5, build unknown
$ docker version
Client:
Version: 19.03.13
API version: 1.40
Go version: go1.13.8
Git commit: 4484c46
Built: Thu Oct 15 18:34:11 2020
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: false
Server:
Engine:
Version: 19.03.11
API version: 1.40 (minimum version 1.12)
Go version: go1.13.12
Git commit: 77e06fd
Built: Mon Jun 8 20:24:59 2020
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: false
containerd:
Version: v1.2.13
GitCommit: 7ad184331fa3e55e52b890ea95e65ba581ae3429
runc:
Version: 1.0.0-rc10
GitCommit:
docker-init:
Version: 0.18.0
GitCommit: fec3683
$ docker info
Client:
Debug Mode: false
Server:
Containers: 12
Running: 3
Paused: 0
Stopped: 9
Images: 149
Server Version: 19.03.11
Storage Driver: overlay2
Backing Filesystem: extfs
Supports d_type: true
Native Overlay Diff: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
Volume: local
Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local logentries splunk syslog
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Init Binary: docker-init
containerd version: 7ad184331fa3e55e52b890ea95e65ba581ae3429
runc version:
init version: fec3683
Security Options:
apparmor
seccomp
Profile: default
Kernel Version: 5.8.0-29-generic
Operating System: Ubuntu Core 16
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 16
Total Memory: 7.202GiB
Name: HongLee
ID: GZ5R:KQDD:JHOJ:KCUF:73AE:N3NY:MWXS:ABQ2:2EVY:4ABJ:H375:J64V
Docker Root Dir: /var/snap/docker/common/var-lib-docker
Debug Mode: false
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
Labels:
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
127.0.0.0/8
Live Restore Enabled: false
Any ideas?

Answer 1

To get the ECS integration, you need to be using an ECS docker context. First, enable the experimental flag in /etc/docker/daemon.json
// /etc/docker/daemon.json
{
"experimental": true
}
Then create the context:
docker context create ecs myecscontext
docker context use myecscontext
$ docker context ls
NAME TYPE DESCRIPTION DOCKER ENDPOINT KUBERNETES ENDPOINT ORCHESTRATOR
default moby Current DOCKER_HOST based configuration unix:///var/run/docker.sock [redacted] (default) swarm
myecscontext * ecs
Now run convert:
$ docker compose convert
WARN[0000] services.build: unsupported attribute
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Resources:
AdminwebService:
DependsOn:
- AdminwebTCP80Listener
Properties:
Cluster:
...

Answer 2

You're running on Ubuntu. The /usr/bin/docker installed (even with latest docker-ce 20.10.6) does not enable the docker compose subcommand. It is enabled by default on Docker for Desktop Windows or Mac.
See the Linux installation instructions at https://github.com/docker/compose-cli to download and configure so that docker compose works.
There's a curl|bash script for Ubuntu or just download the latest release, put that docker executable into a PATH directory before /usr/bin/ and make sure the original docker is available as com.docker.cli e.g. ln -s /usr/bin/docker ~/bin/com.docker.cli.