Deploy App on AWS ECS Fargate using Github Actions

In this blog, i will show how to deploy an application on Amazon ECS using the Fargate for efficient containerized deployment and also Github actions will be used for the CI/CD.

Step 1: Create your repository on ECR( Amazon Elastic Container Registry)

Step 2: Create cluster in ECS

Step 3: Create a Task Definition

You can create a task role if you don't have existing role created. These are the two policies required for the role

For the container, give a name, and copy the image URL created in the ECR previously.
Add the port in which your application is accessed.

Step 4: Create a Service
Note: After creating this service it will fail because there is no image pushed to the ECR yet.
Click on the cluster created, and create service.

Step 5: While service is creating, configure your application github workflow. The application is packaged using Docker.

Hence the dockerfile



FROM node:16.20.1
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
EXPOSE 5000
CMD ["npm","run","start"]

github workflow is as below



name: CICD

on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: [ ubuntu-latest ]
    steps:
      - name: Checkout source
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Configure AWS credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: us-east-1
      - name: Login to Amazon ECR
        id: login-ecr
        uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v2
        with:
          mask-password: 'true'

      - name: Build, tag, and push image to Amazon ECR
        id: build-image
        env:
          ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }}
          IMAGE_TAG: latest
          REPOSITORY: nodeapp
        run: |
          # Build a docker container and
          # push it to ECR so that it can
          # be deployed to ECS.
          docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG .
          docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
          echo "image=$ECR_REGISTRY/$REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT    

      - name: Fill in the new image ID in the Amazon ECS task definition
        id: task-def
        uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecs-render-task-definition@v1
        with:
          task-definition: nodejs-app-task-definition.json 
          container-name: nodejs-app
          image: ${{ steps.build-image.outputs.image }}    
      - name: Deploy Amazon ECS task definition
        uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecs-deploy-task-definition@v1
        with:
          task-definition: ${{ steps.task-def.outputs.task-definition }}
          service: nodejs-app-service
          cluster: DevCluster
          wait-for-service-stability: true

Note:

Create the task definition file(nodejs-app-task-definition.json) in the directory of your project. Copy the json file and paste in the file created.
The environment variables are set in github settings

After the image is built and pushed to ECR, the service becomes active and running.

Click on the task to see the configuration to see the public ip address.