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Last updated: Apr 10th, 2023

AWS Fargate

Collects metrics from containers and tasks running on Amazon ECS clusters with Elastic Agent.

Beta feature

This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official generally available features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support service level agreement of official generally available features.

What is an Elastic integration?

This integration is powered by Elastic Agent. Elastic Agent is a single, unified way to add monitoring for logs, metrics, and other types of data to a host. It can also protect hosts from security threats, query data from operating systems, forward data from remote services or hardware, and more. Refer to our documentation for a detailed comparison between Beats and Elastic Agent.

Prefer to use Beats for this use case? See Filebeat modules for logs or Metricbeat modules for metrics.

The AWS Fargate integration helps to retrieve metadata, network metrics, and Docker stats about your containers and the tasks that are a part of an Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) cluster.

How to set it up

To start collecting AWS Fargate metrics, you must run the Elastic Agent as a sidecar container alongside your application container in the same task definition.

Each task definition must run an Agent because task metadata information is only available to containers running in the task.

Here's an example of an Elastic Agent running as a sidecar with an application container:

TaskDefinition:
    Type: AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition
    Properties:
      Family: !Ref TaskName
      Cpu: 256
      Memory: 512
      NetworkMode: awsvpc
      ExecutionRoleArn: !Ref ExecutionRole
      ContainerDefinitions:
        - Name: <application-container>              << ===== Application container
          Image: <application-container-image>
          <application-container-settings>
        - Name: elastic-agent-container              << ===== Elastic Agent container
          Image: docker.elastic.co/beats/elastic-agent:8.1.0

The Elastic Agent collects metrics using the Amazon ECS task metadata endpoint.

The Amazon ECS task metadata endpoint is an HTTP endpoint available to each container and enabled by default on AWS Fargate platform version 1.4.0 and later. The Elastic Agent uses Task metadata endpoint version 4.

Credentials

No AWS credentials are required for this integration. The ECS task metadata endpoint is accessible inside the cluster only.

Getting Started

This section shows you how to run the Elastic Agent in a ECS cluster, start collecting Fargate on ECS metrics, and send them to an Elastic Stack.

First, we'll see a simple example, setting up a task definition and a service on an existing ECS cluster using the AWS web console; this is the quickest path to have the integration up and running in your existing ECS cluster.

Second, we'll see a complete setup from scratch of a cluster, a service, and a task using a CloudFormation template and the AWS CLI.

Let's get started!

Using the AWS web console

Task Definition

Open the AWS web console and visit the Amazon ECS page. Here you can select "Task Definitions" and then "Create new Task Definition" to start the wizard.

In the step 1 select "Fargate" from the list of available launch types.

In the step 2:

  • Add your preferred name for the "Task definition name", for example "elastic-agent-fargate-deployment".
  • For the "Task role", select "ecsFargateTaskExecutionRole".
  • For the "Operating system family", select "Linux".
  • Pick a value for "Task memory (GB)" and "Task CPU (vCPU)"; the lowest values are fine for testing purposes.
  • Click on "Add container".

As for the container, you can use the following values:

  • Container name: elastic-agent-container
  • Image: docker.elastic.co/beats/elastic-agent:8.1.0
  • Environment variables:
    • FLEET_ENROLL: yes
    • FLEET_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN: <enrollment-token>
    • FLEET_URL: <fleet-server-url>

Tip: use the AWS Secrets Manager to store the Fleet Server enrollment token.

Service

Select an existing ECS cluster and create a new service with launch type "FARGATE". Use the task definition we just created.

As soon as the Elastic Agent is started, open the dashboard "[AWS Fargate] Fargate Overview" and you will see the metrics show up in few minutes.

Using the AWS CLI

In this example, we will use the AWS CLI and a CloudFormation template to set up the following resources:

  • an ECS cluster,
  • a task definition for the Elastic Agent,
  • a service to execute the agent task on the cluster.

Setup

Prepare you terminal and AWS environment to create the ECS cluster for the testing.

Pick a region

Set default AWS region for this session:

export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION="us-east-1"
Secrets management

Store the enrollment token and the Fleet Server URL in the AWS Secrets Manager:

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
    --name FLEET_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN \
    --secret-string <your-fleet-enrollment-token-goes-here>

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
    --name FLEET_URL \
    --secret-string <your-fleet-url>

Take note of the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of both secrets, we'll use them in a moment.

Tip: if you need to update them during your tests, use the following put-secret-value to do it:

aws secretsmanager put-secret-value \
    --secret-id FLEET_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN \
    --secret-string <fleet-enrollment-token>
Networking

One more thing. You need to pick one subnet where your ECS cluster will be created in. Take note of the subnet ID for the very next step.

Deploy the stack

Copy the following CloudFormation template and save it on you computer with the name cloudformation.yml:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: "2010-09-09"
Parameters:
  SubnetID:
    Type: String
    Description: Enter the ID of the subnet you want to create the cluster in.
  FleetEnrollmentTokenSecretArn:
    Type: String
    Description: Enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the secret holding the enrollment token for the Elastic Agent.
  FleetUrlSecretArn:
    Type: String
    Description: Enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the secret holding the Fleet Server URL.
  ClusterName:
    Type: String
    Default: elastic-agent-fargate
    Description: Enter the name of the Fargate cluster to create.
  RoleName:
    Type: String
    Default: ecsFargateTaskExecutionRole
    Description: Enter the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the task execution role that grants the Amazon ECS container agent permission to make AWS API calls on your behalf.
  TaskName:
    Type: String
    Default: elastic-agent-fargate-task
    Description: Enter the name of the task definition to create.
  ServiceName:
    Type: String
    Default: elastic-agent-fargate-service
    Description: Enter the name of the service to create.
  LogGroupName:
    Type: String
    Default: elastic-agent-fargate-log-group
    Description: Enter the name of the log group to create.
Resources:
  Cluster:
    Type: AWS::ECS::Cluster
    Properties:
      ClusterName: !Ref ClusterName
      ClusterSettings:
        - Name: containerInsights
          Value: disabled
  LogGroup:
    Type: AWS::Logs::LogGroup
    Properties:
      LogGroupName: !Ref LogGroupName
  ExecutionRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      RoleName: !Ref RoleName
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
        Statement:
          - Effect: Allow
            Principal:
              Service: ecs-tasks.amazonaws.com
            Action: sts:AssumeRole
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonECSTaskExecutionRolePolicy
      Policies:
        - PolicyName: !Sub 'EcsTaskExecutionRole-${AWS::StackName}'
          PolicyDocument:
            Version: 2012-10-17
            Statement:
              - Effect: Allow
                Action:
                  - secretsmanager:GetSecretValue
                Resource:
                  - !Ref FleetEnrollmentTokenSecretArn
                  - !Ref FleetUrlSecretArn
  TaskDefinition:
    Type: AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition
    Properties:
      Family: !Ref TaskName
      Cpu: 256
      Memory: 512
      NetworkMode: awsvpc
      ExecutionRoleArn: !Ref ExecutionRole
      ContainerDefinitions:
        - Name: elastic-agent-container
          Image: docker.elastic.co/beats/elastic-agent:8.1.0
          Secrets:
            - Name: FLEET_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN
              ValueFrom: !Ref FleetEnrollmentTokenSecretArn
            - Name: FLEET_URL
              ValueFrom: !Ref FleetUrlSecretArn
          LogConfiguration:
            LogDriver: awslogs
            Options:
              awslogs-region: !Ref AWS::Region
              awslogs-group: !Ref LogGroup
              awslogs-stream-prefix: ecs
          Environment:
            - Name: FLEET_ENROLL
              Value: true
              # You migh need to set FLEET_INSECURE to true
              # if you're connecting to a development
              # environment. Use it responsibly.
              # - Name: FLEET_INSECURE
              #   Value: true
      RequiresCompatibilities:
        - EC2
        - FARGATE
  Service:
    Type: AWS::ECS::Service
    Properties:
      ServiceName: !Ref ServiceName
      Cluster: !Ref Cluster
      TaskDefinition: !Ref TaskDefinition
      DesiredCount: 1
      LaunchType: FARGATE
      NetworkConfiguration:
        AwsvpcConfiguration:
          AssignPublicIp: ENABLED
          Subnets:
            - !Ref SubnetID

We are now finally ready to deploy the ECS cluster with the Elastic Agent running in its own task.

aws cloudformation create-stack \
    --stack-name elastic-agent-fargate-deployment \
    --template-body file://./cloudformation.yml \
    --capabilities CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM \
    --parameters \
        ParameterKey=SubnetID,ParameterValue=<subnet-id> \
        ParameterKey=FleetEnrollmentTokenSecretArn,ParameterValue=arn:aws:secretsmanager:eu-west-1:000123456789:secret:FLEET_ENROLLMENT_TOKEN-ZxsJGw \
        ParameterKey=FleetUrlSecretArn,ParameterValue=arn:aws:secretsmanager:eu-west-1:000123456789:secret:FLEET_URL-mvjF3a \
        ParameterKey=ClusterName,ParameterValue=elastic-agent-fargate \
        ParameterKey=RoleName,ParameterValue=ecsFargateTaskExecutionRole \
        ParameterKey=TaskName,ParameterValue=elastic-agent-fargate-task \
        ParameterKey=ServiceName,ParameterValue=elastic-agent-fargate-service \
        ParameterKey=LogGroupName,ParameterValue=elastic-agent-fargate-log-group

The AWS CLI will return a StackId:

{
    "StackId": "arn:aws:cloudformation:eu-west-1:000123456789:stack/elastic-agent-deployment/fc324160-b0f9-11ec-9c45-0643aa7239c3"
}

Check the stack status until it has reached the CREATE_COMPLETE status. Use the AWS web console or the AWS CLI (requires the tool jq):

$ aws cloudformation list-stacks | jq '.StackSummaries[] | .StackName + " " + .StackStatus'

"elastic-agent-fargate-deployment CREATE_COMPLETE"

That's it!

Clean up

Once you're done with experimenting, you can remove all the resources (ECS cluster, task, service, etc) with the following command:

aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name elastic-agent-fargate-deployment

Further Readings

If you want to learn more about Amazon ECS metrics, take a look at the blog post How to monitor Amazon ECS with Elastic Observability.

Metrics

Task Stats

Exported fields

FieldDescriptionType
@timestamp
Event timestamp.
date
awsfargate.task_stats.cluster_name
Cluster name
keyword
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.core
object
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.core.*.norm.pct
Percentage of time per CPU core normalized by the number of CPU cores.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.core.*.pct
Percentage of time per CPU core.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.core.*.ticks
CPU ticks per CPU core.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.kernel.norm.pct
Percentage of time in kernel space normalized by the number of CPU cores.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.kernel.pct
Percentage of time in kernel space.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.kernel.ticks
CPU ticks in kernel space.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.system.norm.pct
Percentage of total CPU time in the system normalized by the number of CPU cores.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.system.pct
Percentage of total CPU time in the system.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.system.ticks
CPU system ticks.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.total.norm.pct
Total CPU usage normalized by the number of CPU cores.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.total.pct
Total CPU usage.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.user.norm.pct
Percentage of time in user space normalized by the number of CPU cores.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.user.pct
Percentage of time in user space.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.cpu.user.ticks
CPU ticks in user space.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.bytes
Bytes read during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.ops
Number of reads during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.queued
Total number of queued requests
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.rate
Number of current reads per second
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.service_time
Total time to service IO requests, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.read.wait_time
Total time requests spent waiting in queues for service, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.reads
Number of current reads per second
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.bytes
Bytes read and written during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.ops
Number of I/O operations during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.queued
Total number of queued requests
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.rate
Number of current operations per second
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.service_time
Total time to service IO requests, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.summary.wait_time
Total time requests spent waiting in queues for service, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.total
Number of reads and writes per second
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.bytes
Bytes written during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.ops
Number of writes during the life of the container
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.queued
Total number of queued requests
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.rate
Number of current writes per second
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.service_time
Total time to service IO requests, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.write.wait_time
Total time requests spent waiting in queues for service, in nanoseconds
long
awsfargate.task_stats.diskio.writes
Number of current writes per second
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.identifier
Container identifier across tasks and clusters, which equals to container.name + '/' + container.id.
keyword
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.commit.peak
Peak committed bytes on Windows
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.commit.total
Total bytes
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.fail.count
Fail counter.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.limit
Memory limit.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.private_working_set.total
private working sets on Windows
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.rss.pct
Memory resident set size percentage.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.rss.total
Total memory resident set size.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.rss.usage.max
Max memory usage.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.rss.usage.pct
Memory usage percentage.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.rss.usage.total
Total memory usage.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.stats.*
Raw memory stats from the cgroups memory.stat interface
object
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.usage.max
Max memory usage.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.usage.pct
Memory usage percentage.
scaled_float
awsfargate.task_stats.memory.usage.total
Total memory usage.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.inbound.bytes
Total number of incoming bytes.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.inbound.dropped
Total number of dropped incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.inbound.errors
Total errors on incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.inbound.packets
Total number of incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.outbound.bytes
Total number of incoming bytes.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.outbound.dropped
Total number of dropped incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.outbound.errors
Total errors on incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.network.*.outbound.packets
Total number of incoming packets.
long
awsfargate.task_stats.task_desired_status
The desired status for the task from Amazon ECS.
keyword
awsfargate.task_stats.task_known_status
The known status for the task from Amazon ECS.
keyword
awsfargate.task_stats.task_name
ECS task name
keyword
cloud
Fields related to the cloud or infrastructure the events are coming from.
group
cloud.account.id
The cloud account or organization id used to identify different entities in a multi-tenant environment. Examples: AWS account id, Google Cloud ORG Id, or other unique identifier.
keyword
cloud.account.name
The cloud account name or alias used to identify different entities in a multi-tenant environment. Examples: AWS account name, Google Cloud ORG display name.
keyword
cloud.availability_zone
Availability zone in which this host, resource, or service is located.
keyword
cloud.instance.id
Instance ID of the host machine.
keyword
cloud.machine.type
Machine type of the host machine.
keyword
cloud.provider
Name of the cloud provider. Example values are aws, azure, gcp, or digitalocean.
keyword
cloud.region
Region in which this host, resource, or service is located.
keyword
container
Container fields are used for meta information about the specific container that is the source of information. These fields help correlate data based containers from any runtime.
group
container.id
Unique container id.
keyword
container.image.name
Name of the image the container was built on.
keyword
container.labels.com_amazonaws_ecs_cluster
ECS Cluster name
keyword
container.labels.com_amazonaws_ecs_container-name
ECS container name
keyword
container.labels.com_amazonaws_ecs_task-arn
ECS task ARN
keyword
container.labels.com_amazonaws_ecs_task-definition-family
ECS task definition family
keyword
container.labels.com_amazonaws_ecs_task-definition-version
ECS task definition version
keyword
container.name
Container name.
keyword
data_stream.dataset
Data stream dataset.
constant_keyword
data_stream.namespace
Data stream namespace.
constant_keyword
data_stream.type
Data stream type.
constant_keyword
ecs.version
ECS version this event conforms to. ecs.version is a required field and must exist in all events. When querying across multiple indices -- which may conform to slightly different ECS versions -- this field lets integrations adjust to the schema version of the events.
keyword
error
These fields can represent errors of any kind. Use them for errors that happen while fetching events or in cases where the event itself contains an error.
group
error.message
Error message.
match_only_text
service.type
The type of the service data is collected from. The type can be used to group and correlate logs and metrics from one service type. Example: If logs or metrics are collected from Elasticsearch, service.type would be elasticsearch.
keyword

An example event for task_stats looks as following:

{
    "@timestamp": "2017-10-12T08:05:34.853Z",
    "awsfargate": {
        "task_stats": {
            "cluster_name": "default",
            "task_known_status": "RUNNING",
            "task_desired_status": "RUNNING",
            "cpu": {
                "core": null,
                "kernel": {
                    "norm": {
                        "pct": 0
                    },
                    "pct": 0,
                    "ticks": 1520000000
                },
                "system": {
                    "norm": {
                        "pct": 1
                    },
                    "pct": 2,
                    "ticks": 1420180000000
                },
                "total": {
                    "norm": {
                        "pct": 0.2
                    },
                    "pct": 0.4
                },
                "user": {
                    "norm": {
                        "pct": 0
                    },
                    "pct": 0,
                    "ticks": 490000000
                }
            },
            "diskio": {
                "read": {
                    "bytes": 3452928,
                    "ops": 118,
                    "queued": 0,
                    "rate": 0,
                    "service_time": 0,
                    "wait_time": 0
                },
                "reads": 0,
                "summary": {
                    "bytes": 3452928,
                    "ops": 118,
                    "queued": 0,
                    "rate": 0,
                    "service_time": 0,
                    "wait_time": 0
                },
                "total": 0,
                "write": {
                    "bytes": 0,
                    "ops": 0,
                    "queued": 0,
                    "rate": 0,
                    "service_time": 0,
                    "wait_time": 0
                },
                "writes": 0
            },
            "identifier": "query-metadata/1234",
            "memory": {
                "fail": {
                    "count": 0
                },
                "limit": 0,
                "rss": {
                    "pct": 0.0010557805807105247,
                    "total": 4157440
                },
                "stats": {
                    "active_anon": 4157440,
                    "active_file": 4497408,
                    "cache": 6000640,
                    "dirty": 16384,
                    "hierarchical_memory_limit": 2147483648,
                    "hierarchical_memsw_limit": 9223372036854772000,
                    "inactive_anon": 0,
                    "inactive_file": 1503232,
                    "mapped_file": 2183168,
                    "pgfault": 6668,
                    "pgmajfault": 52,
                    "pgpgin": 5925,
                    "pgpgout": 3445,
                    "rss": 4157440,
                    "rss_huge": 0,
                    "total_active_anon": 4157440,
                    "total_active_file": 4497408,
                    "total_cache": 600064,
                    "total_dirty": 16384,
                    "total_inactive_anon": 0,
                    "total_inactive_file": 4497408,
                    "total_mapped_file": 2183168,
                    "total_pgfault": 6668,
                    "total_pgmajfault": 52,
                    "total_pgpgin": 5925,
                    "total_pgpgout": 3445,
                    "total_rss": 4157440,
                    "total_rss_huge": 0,
                    "total_unevictable": 0,
                    "total_writeback": 0,
                    "unevictable": 0,
                    "writeback": 0
                },
                "usage": {
                    "max": 15294464,
                    "pct": 0.003136136404770672,
                    "total": 12349440
                }
            },
            "network": {
                "eth0": {
                    "inbound": {
                        "bytes": 137315578,
                        "dropped": 0,
                        "errors": 0,
                        "packets": 94338
                    },
                    "outbound": {
                        "bytes": 1086811,
                        "dropped": 0,
                        "errors": 0,
                        "packets": 25857
                    }
                }
            },
            "task_name": "query-metadata"
        }
    },
    "cloud": {
        "region": "us-west-2"
    },
    "container": {
        "id": "1234",
        "image": {
            "name": "mreferre/eksutils"
        },
        "labels": {
            "com_amazonaws_ecs_cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:us-west-2:111122223333:cluster/default",
            "com_amazonaws_ecs_container-name": "query-metadata",
            "com_amazonaws_ecs_task-arn": "arn:aws:ecs:us-west-2:111122223333:task/default/febee046097849aba589d4435207c04a",
            "com_amazonaws_ecs_task-definition-family": "query-metadata",
            "com_amazonaws_ecs_task-definition-version": "7"
        },
        "name": "query-metadata"
    },
    "service": {
        "type": "awsfargate"
    }
}

Changelog

VersionDetails
0.2.1
Enhancement View pull request
Added categories and/or subcategories.
0.2.0
Enhancement View pull request
Improve dashboards by removing individual visualizations from library
0.1.3
Enhancement View pull request
Clarify how to run the awsfargate integration as a sidecar container.
0.1.2
Enhancement View pull request
Add DesiredStatus and KnownStatus for Fargate Tasks among the collected fields
0.1.1
Enhancement View pull request
Improve description and screenshots
0.1.0
Enhancement View pull request
initial release