I have a dockerized Jenkins build server set up like below and I want move it to AWS.
I have some questions on how to do it, Thanks.
Is ECS the right choice to deploy dockerized Jenkins agents?
Is Fargate launch type of ECS support Windows containers?
I know ECS can dynamically provision EC2 instances, can ECS provision like below?
a. If there is no job to build, there is no ECS2 instance running in the cluster.
b. If a build job started, ECS dynamically launch a EC2 instance to run the dockerized agents to handle it.
c. After build job is finished, ECS cluster will automatically stop or terminate the running EC2 instance.
==================================================================
Jenkins master:
Runs as a Linux container hosted on a UBUNTU virtual machine.
Jenkins Agents:
Linux Agent:
Runs as a Linux container hosted on the same UBUNTU virtual machine as master.
Windows Agents:
Runs as a windows container hosted on a Windows server 2019.
Well, I have some tips for you:
Yes, ECS can dynamically provision EC2 Instances using autoscaling, but only when the threshold of a metric is reached in cloudwatch and an alarm is thrown out and autoscaling start to works. Start a task in ECS with a jenkins master server, and then start 1 or 2 agents when you go to execute a job is not a good tactic neither practical idea, who going to wake up these tasks?
If you want to use a jenkins docker inside an EC2 instance and you have a master node running and you want to keep stopped your unused agents and start it only if is needed by a job maybe in your Jenkinsfile you can call a lambda function to start your agent, here and example in a Jenkinsfile:
stage('Start Infrastructure') {
steps {
sh '''
#!/bin/bash
aws lambda invoke --function-name Wake_Up_Jenkins_Agent --invocation-type Event --log-type Tail --payload '{"node":"NodeJS-Java-Agent","action":"start"}' logsfile.txt
'''
}
}
And later another stage to stop your agent, but your master node need to be online because it is the key and main component either called from the repository or your CI/CD process. Also you need to implement the lambda with a logical procedure to start or stop the instance.
In my experience run Jenkins directly in EC2 is a better choice that run it in ECS or Fargate.
Related
I am currently having a docker container running on a fargate that is working well automatically turning on and off to run a workload. Due to restrictions in memory and I want to have more GBs than 30GB, I wanted to move to EC2 version of ECS task. The task is running in EC2 instance created but doesnt turn off after the task is completed.
I want to know how to configure this automatically using ECS.
ECS Cluster Auto Scaling should be able to scale your EC2 cluster back to 0 instances if you have no tasks running on it. Have a look at this blog.
I have a requirement where i have to create a Fargate task that can clone a gitab repository(source code) and run a maven build command to build the code.
And there would be another fargate task that would create a docker image out of it.
Gitlab is on an EC2 instance.
Since we do not have exec access into the containers on Fargate, how and what would be the best way to do this. (I have multiple repos on Gitlab and so the repo that i want to clone and build is not going be the same every time)
I have been reading about the Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) / Fargate plugin on Jenkins.But i'm not sure if Jenkins can be used to get into a Fargate container and run commands.
nowadays you can use ECS exec. Here's how to set it up: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/containers/new-using-amazon-ecs-exec-access-your-containers-fargate-ec2/
or in short:
https://www.ernestchiang.com/en/posts/2021/using-amazon-ecs-exec/
I have created a pipeline using AWS Codepipeline, Github, Jenkins and AWS Elastic Beanstalk (Docker) running a nodejs application. Everytime a build is triggered in AWS Codepipeline and deployment done on the Elastic Beanstalk instance, it's corresponding EC2 instance is terminated and another one created afresh and we only want the app to be deployed without termination of EC2 instance. What could be the cause for termination on every build/deployed?
how many instances do you have in your beanstalk and what deployment method are you using: All at Once, Rolling, Rolling with an Additional Batch or Immutable?
With these responses, we can continue the research.
I switched to Immutable deployment and stopped experiencing the issue as explained here: Difference between rolling, rolling with additional batch and immutable deployments in AWS?
Turns out that Rolling deployments can cause the timeouts especially that I had a single instance needed
Has anyone been able to configure selenoid on aws ecs ? I am able to run the selenoid-ui container but the selenoid hub image keeps throwing an error regarding the browsers.json however I have not been able to find a way to add the browsers.json file because it stops before it executes the CMD command
There is no point to run selenoid on AWS ECS, as your setup won't scale (your browser containers will be launched on the same EC2 instance where your selenoid container is running). With ECS, you run your service on a cluster, so either your cluster contains on 1 EC2 instance, or you waste your compute resources.
If you don't need scaling, I'd suggest you run selenoid on simple EC2 instance with docker installed. If you do want to have scaling, then I suggest you to take a look at a commercial version of selenoid (called Moon), which you can run on AWS EKS.
I have a Docker image containing Python code and third-party binary executables. There are only outbound network requests. The image must run hourly and each execution lasts ~3 minutes.
I can:
Use an EC2 instance and schedule hourly execution via cron
Create a CloudWatch Event/Rule to run an ECS Task Defintion hourly
Setup an Elastic Beanstalk environment and schedule hourly deployment of the image
In all of these scenarios, an EC2 instance is running 24/7 and I am being charged for extended periods of no usage.
How do I accomplish scheduling the starting of an existing EC2 instance hourly and the stopping of said instance after the completion of my docker image?
Here's one approach I can think of. It's very high-level, and omits some details, but conceptually it would work just fine. You'll also need to consider the Identity & Access Management (IAM) Roles used:
CloudWatch Event Rule to trigger the Step Function
AWS Step Function to trigger the Lambda function
AWS Lambda function to start up EC2 instances
EC2 instance polling the Step Functions service for Activity Tasks
Create a CloudWatch Event Rule to schedule a periodic task, using a cron expression
The Target of the CloudWatch Event Rule is an AWS Step Function
The AWS Step Function State Machine starts by triggering an AWS Lambda function, which starts the EC2 instance
The next step in the Step Functions State Machine invokes an Activity Task, representing the Docker container that needs to execute
The EC2 instance has a script running on it, which polls the Activity Task for work
The EC2 instance executes the Docker container, waits for it to finish, and sends a completion message to the Step Functions Activity Task
The script running on the EC2 instance shuts itself down
The AWS Step Function ends
Keep in mind that a potentially better option would be to spin up a new EC2 instance every hour, instead of simply starting and stopping the same instance. Although you might get better startup performance by starting an existing instance vs. launching a new instance, you'll also have to spend time to maintain the EC2 instance like a pet: fix issues if they crop up, or patch the operating system periodically. In today's world, it's a commonly accepted practice that infrastructure should be disposable. After all, you've already packaged up your application into a Docker container, so you most likely don't have overly specific expectations around which host that container is actually being executed on.
Another option would be to use AWS Fargate, which is designed to run Docker containers, without worrying about spinning up and managing container infrastructure.
AWS Step Functions
AWS Fargate
Blog: AWS Fargate: An Overview
Creating a CloudWatch Event Rule that triggers on a schedule