Solution for Restarting Multiple ECS Services via AWS CLI #

You’re absolutely right that aws ecs update-service doesn’t have a native bulk restart option for services filtered by tags or task definitions. But with a bit of shell scripting combined with AWS CLI commands, you can easily automate this. Here are two common approaches tailored to your needs:

1. Restart Services Matching Specific Tags #

If you want to target services with a specific tag (e.g., Environment=Production), use this script to filter and restart them:

# Configure your cluster and target tag details
CLUSTER_NAME="your-cluster-name"
TAG_KEY="Environment"
TAG_VALUE="Production"

# Fetch all service ARNs in the cluster
SERVICE_ARNS=$(aws ecs list-services --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME --query "serviceArns" --output text | tr '\t' '\n')

# Loop through each service, check tags, and restart if matching
for ARN in $SERVICE_ARNS; do
    # Check if the service has the target tag
    MATCHING_TAG=$(aws ecs list-tags-for-resource --resource-arn $ARN --query "tags[?Key=='$TAG_KEY' && Value=='$TAG_VALUE']" --output text)
    if [ -n "$MATCHING_TAG" ]; then
        echo "Initiating restart for service: $ARN"
        aws ecs update-service --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME --service $ARN --force-new-deployment
    fi
done

2. Restart Services Using a Specific Task Definition #

If you want to restart all services using a particular task definition (with or without a version), use this approach:

CLUSTER_NAME="your-cluster-name"
TARGET_TASK_DEF="your-task-definition-family" # Add version like "your-task-def-family:123" if needed

# Get all service ARNs in the cluster
SERVICE_ARNS=$(aws ecs list-services --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME --query "serviceArns" --output text | tr '\t' '\n')

# Loop through services and restart if they use the target task definition
for ARN in $SERVICE_ARNS; do
    # Fetch the task definition associated with the service
    SERVICE_TASK_DEF=$(aws ecs describe-services --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME --services $ARN --query "services[0].taskDefinition" --output text)
    # Check if the task definition matches (supports partial matches for versioned definitions)
    if [[ $SERVICE_TASK_DEF == $TARGET_TASK_DEF* ]]; then
        echo "Restarting service using task definition $SERVICE_TASK_DEF: $ARN"
        aws ecs update-service --cluster $CLUSTER_NAME --service $ARN --force-new-deployment
    fi
done

Key Notes: #

• The --force-new-deployment flag is critical here—it triggers ECS to launch new task instances and terminate old ones, effectively "restarting" the service without changing any configuration.
• Ensure your AWS CLI credentials have permissions for ecs:ListServices, ecs:DescribeServices, ecs:ListTagsForResource, and ecs:UpdateService actions.
• For large clusters, consider adding a small delay (e.g., sleep 1) between update-service calls to avoid hitting AWS API rate limits.
• You can modify the filtering logic to handle multiple tags, exact task definition matches, or other custom criteria as needed.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Ste