AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck is responsible for monitoring the health of containers and task. FInd out more here. 

At Bobcares, we offer solutions for every query, big and small, as a part of our AWS Support Services.

Let’s take a look at how our AWS Support Team is ready to help customers understand more about AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck.

All About AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck

Amazon ECS container agents monitor as well as report on health checks as per the task definition. However, It does not monitor Docker health checks that are within the container image and not specified in the container definition.

In other words, Healthcheck parameters in a container definition tend to override Docker Health checks existing in the container image.

Health check parameters allow us to analyze the health status of individual containers and tasks. The AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck parameter may have any one of the following three values for a container:

• HEALTHY:

  This indicates that the container health check is successful.
• UNHEALTHY:

  This indicates that the container health check did not succeed.
• UNKNOWN:

  This value tells us that the container health check is currently under evaluation or that no container health check is defined.

The AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck parameter may have any one of the following three values for a task:

• HEALTHY:

  It indicates that all essential containers within the task are successful with their health checks.
• UNHEALTHY:

  This tells us that one or more essential containers did not succeed in their health check.
• UNKNOWN:

  This value indicates that the essential containers within the task are still under evaluation or that no container health checks are defined.

Our AWS Support Techs would like to point out that, in case a task is run manually, rather than as part of a service, the task’s lifecycle will continue despite its AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck status. Alternatively, if the task is a part of a service, and the task report states it is unhealthy, then the task is stopped and replaced by the service scheduler.

Health Check syntax

The AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck syntax consists of the following:

• command (string):

  It is a string array that the container runs to verify if it is healthy or not.
• interval (integer):

  It is the time period (in seconds) between consecutive health checks. By default, the value is 30 seconds.
• retries (integer):

  It indicates the number of times it has to retry a health check in case of failure. By default, the value is 3.
• startPeriod (integer):

  This is the optional grace period that allows containers time to bootstrap before failed AWS ECS Docker Health Check tries add up to the maximum number of retires. By default this is disabled.
• timeout (integer):

  It is the time period (in seconds) it has to wait for a health check to succeed before it is deemed a failure. By default, the value is 5 seconds.

[Need assistance with another query? We are available 24/7.]

Conclusion

In a nutshell, our skilled AWS Support Engineers at Bobcares introduced AWS ECS Docker HealthCheck to us.