ECS update container timeout

ECS update container timeout modifies the start and stop timeouts for ECS containers in Amazon ECS clusters. The fault allows you to specify the duration for which the containers should be allowed to start or stop before they are considered failed.

ECS Update Container Timeout

Use cases

ECS update container timeout:

Tests the resilience of ECS tasks and their containers to timeouts during updates or deployments.
Verifies the behavior of ECS tasks and their containers when the start or stop timeout is exceeded during updates or deployments.
Tests the recovery mechanisms of the ECS service and container instances in case of timeouts.
Simulates scenarios where containers take longer than expected to start or stop.
Evaluates the impact of above-mentioned scenarios on the overall application availability and performance.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes >= 1.17
ECS cluster running with the desired tasks and containers and familiarity with ECS service update and deployment concepts.
Create a Kubernetes secret that has the AWS access configuration(key) in the CHAOS_NAMESPACE. Below is a sample secret file:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: cloud-secret
type: Opaque
stringData:
  cloud_config.yml: |-
    # Add the cloud AWS credentials respectively
    [default]
    aws_access_key_id = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    aws_secret_access_key = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It is recommended to use the same secret name, that is, cloud-secret. Otherwise, you will need to update the AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE environment variable in the fault template and you may be unable to use the default health check probes.

Permissions required

Here is an example AWS policy to execute the fault.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:DescribeTasks",
                "ecs:DescribeServices",
                "ecs:DescribeTaskDefinition",
                "ecs:RegisterTaskDefinition",
                "ecs:UpdateService",
                "ecs:ListTasks",
                "ecs:DeregisterTaskDefinition"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:PassRole"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

note

Refer to AWS named profile for chaos to use a different profile for AWS faults.
The ECS containers should be in a healthy state before and after introducing chaos.
Refer to the common attributes and AWS-specific tunables to tune the common tunables for all faults and AWS-specific tunables.
Refer to the superset permission/policy to execute all AWS faults.

Mandatory tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
CLUSTER_NAME	Name of the target ECS cluster.	For example, `cluster-1`.
SERVICE_NAME	Name of the ECS service under chaos.	For example, `nginx-svc`.
REGION	Region name of the target ECS cluster	For example, `us-east-1`.

Optional tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION	Duration that you specify, through which chaos is injected into the target resource (in seconds).	Defaults to 30s.
CHAOS_INTERVAL	Interval between successive instance terminations (in seconds).	Defaults to 30s.
AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE	Path to the AWS secret credentials.	Defaults to `/tmp/cloud_config.yml`.
START_TIMEOUT	This is the maximum amount of time that ECS allows for a container to start successfully. If the container fails to start within this timeout period, ECS marks the task as failed and may trigger a restart or rescheduling of the task.	It is specified in seconds, and its default value is set to 3,600 seconds if not provided.
STOP_TIMEOUT	This is the maximum amount of time that ECS allows for a container to stop gracefully. If the container does not stop within the `STOP_TIMEOUT` period, ECS forcefully terminates the container, which may result in data loss or other undesirable consequen	It is specified in seconds, and its default value is set to 3,600 seconds if not provided.
RAMP_TIME	Period to wait before and after injecting chaos (in seconds).	For example, 30s.

Start and stop timeout

The start and stop timeout for the task containers. Tune it by using the START_TIMEOUT and STOP_TIMEOUT environment variable. Its default value is set to 3,600 seconds.

The following YAML snippet illustrates the use of this environment variable:

# set start and stop timeout for the target container
apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: aws-nginx
spec:
  engineState: "active"
  annotationCheck: "false"
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
  - name: ecs-update-container-timeout
    spec:
      components:
        env:
        # Provide the start and stop timeout for the ecs container
        - name: START_TIMEOUT
          value: '30'
        - name: STOP_TIMEOUT
          value: '30'
        - name: REGION
          value: 'us-east-2'
        - name: TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION
          VALUE: '60'

Use cases​

Prerequisites​

Permissions required​