In an Amazon ECS task definition, the environment parameter is used to define environment variables that are passed to the container at runtime.
Environment variables are key-value pairs that can be used to configure the behavior of the containerized application without changing the application code.
"containerDefinitions": [{
"name": "my-microservice-container",
"image": "my-microservice:latest",
"environment": [
{
"name": "DATABASE_URL",
"value": "mysql://username:password@hostname:3306/dbname"
},
{
"name": "API_KEY",
"value": "your_api_key_here"
},
{
"name": "LOG_LEVEL",
"value": "debug"
}]
}]
As said above, a list of environment variables to set in containerDefinitions/environment.
Purposes of Environment Variables:
Configuration Management: You can use environment variables to configure the application, such as setting the application mode (development, testing, production), configuring logging levels, or setting feature flags.
1. Secrets Management: Environment variables can be used to pass sensitive information like database credentials, API keys, and other secrets to the application. However, for enhanced security, consider using AWS Secrets Manager or AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to manage sensitive data.
2.Operational Parameters: You can define various operational parameters, like memory limits, thread counts, or other runtime configurations that the application might need.
3. Service Endpoints: Environment variables can be used to specify the URLs or endpoints of other services that the application needs to communicate with.
4. Feature Toggles: You can use environment variables to enable or disable features within your application dynamically without changing the code.
