AWS ECS Instance Protection | Azure DevOps Agent Monitor | Docker Container Activity Tracker | CI/CD Build Protection

Monitor Azure DevOps agents running in Docker containers and communicate with AWS ECS to prevent premature instance termination during active builds.

Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/hypolas/ecsazrlc

This tool watches Docker socket for Azure DevOps Agent container activity and informs AWS ECS about server activity, preventing termination of instances with running builds.

Keywords: AWS ECS, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, Docker monitoring, instance lifecycle, CI/CD, container monitoring, build agent protection, AWS auto-scaling, spot instance protection

• Real-time Docker monitoring - Listens to Docker socket events
• Azure agent detection - Automatically identifies Azure DevOps Agent containers
• ECS heartbeat - Sends periodic activity signals to ECS
• Instance protection - Can enable/disable termination protection
• Standalone mode - Can run in monitoring-only mode without ECS
• Flexible filtering - Exclude specific containers or images from monitoring

# Pull the latest image
docker pull hypolas/ecsazrlc:latest

# Run in monitoring-only mode
docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro hypolas/ecsazrlc:latest --monitor-only

# Run with ECS integration
docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  -e AWS_REGION=us-east-1 \
  hypolas/ecsazrlc:latest --enable-ecs --cluster my-cluster

Create a docker-compose.yml:

services:
  ecsazrlc:
    image: hypolas/ecsazrlc:latest
    container_name: ecsazrlc
    restart: unless-stopped

    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

    environment:
      - AWS_REGION=us-east-1
      # Optional: for local dev/testing
      # - AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-key
      # - AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret

    command:
      - "--monitor-only"
      # Exclude specific containers (optional)
      # - "--exclude-containers"
      # - "portainer,watchtower"
      # Exclude specific images (optional)
      # - "--exclude-images"
      # - "alpine,redis"
      # For ECS integration, use:
      # - "--enable-ecs"
      # - "--cluster"
      # - "your-cluster-name"
      # - "--heartbeat"
      # - "30s"

Then run:

# Start
docker-compose up -d

# View logs
docker-compose logs -f ecsazrlc

# Stop
docker-compose down

# Build and start
podman compose up -d

# View logs
podman compose logs -f ecsazrlc

go build -o ecsazrlc ./cmd
./ecsazrlc --monitor-only

./ecsazrlc --monitor-only --verbose

./ecsazrlc --enable-ecs --cluster my-cluster --heartbeat 30s

# Exclude specific containers by name
./ecsazrlc --monitor-only --exclude-containers "portainer,watchtower,nginx"

# Exclude by image name
./ecsazrlc --monitor-only --exclude-images "postgres,mysql,redis"

# Combine both filters
./ecsazrlc --enable-ecs --cluster my-cluster \
  --exclude-containers "test-container" \
  --exclude-images "alpine,busybox"

• Prevent build interruption: Protect EC2/ECS instances running Azure DevOps agents from termination during active builds
• Cost optimization: Use AWS spot instances or auto-scaling for CI/CD without losing running jobs
• Hybrid CI/CD: Run Azure DevOps agents on AWS ECS infrastructure
• Container lifecycle management: Monitor Docker container activity for custom automation
• Multi-cloud CI/CD: Bridge Azure DevOps with AWS compute resources

• BUILD.md - Complete build and deployment guide

  • Docker Compose setup
  • Podman support
  • Local builds (Linux/macOS/Windows)
  • Multi-architecture builds (amd64/arm64)
  • EC2 deployment
  • ECS Task Definition examples

• CREDENTIALS.md - AWS credentials configuration

  • IAM roles (recommended for production)
  • Environment variables
  • Credentials file
  • Required IAM permissions

• TESTING.md - Testing guide

  • Local testing with Docker Compose
  • EC2 testing
  • Azure agent simulation

┌─────────────────────┐         ┌──────────────────┐
│  Docker Socket      │────────▶│   ecsazrlc       │
│  (container events) │         │   (monitor)      │
└─────────────────────┘         └────────┬─────────┘
                                         │
                                ┌────────▼─────────┐
                                │   AWS ECS API    │
                                │   (heartbeat)    │
                                └──────────────────┘

• Language: Go 1.25.1+
• Cloud: AWS ECS, EC2, IAM
• CI/CD: Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines
• Container: Docker, Podman
• SDK: AWS SDK for Go v2, Docker Engine API

• Docker or Podman
• Go 1.25.1+ (for local builds)
• AWS credentials (IAM role recommended)
• Access to Docker socket

The EC2/ECS instance needs:

• ecs:DescribeClusters
• ecs:ListContainerInstances
• ecs:DescribeContainerInstances
• ecs:PutAttributes
• ecs:UpdateContainerInstancesState

See CREDENTIALS.md for details.

• AWS_REGION - AWS region (default: us-east-1)
• AWS_DEFAULT_REGION - Alternative AWS region
• AWS_PROFILE - AWS profile to use (default: default)
• DOCKER_HOST - Docker socket (default: unix:///var/run/docker.sock)

• --cluster - ECS cluster name (required in ECS mode)
• --heartbeat - Heartbeat interval (default: 30s)
• --enable-ecs - Enable ECS notifications
• --monitor-only - Monitoring-only mode without ECS
• --verbose - Verbose mode with detailed logs
• --exclude-containers - Exclude containers by name or ID (comma-separated)
• --exclude-images - Exclude containers by image name (comma-separated)

• Linux (amd64, arm64)
• Windows (amd64)
• macOS (amd64, arm64)
• Docker containers
• Podman containers
• AWS EC2 instances
• AWS ECS tasks

Run Azure Pipelines agents on AWS ECS infrastructure with automatic lifecycle management.

Use AWS spot instances for cost savings while ensuring running builds are never interrupted.

Scale Azure DevOps agent pools on AWS with ECS auto-scaling while protecting active build agents.

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or pull request.

MIT

aws-ecs azure-devops azure-pipelines docker-monitoring ci-cd golang container-lifecycle instance-protection devops-automation hybrid-cloud spot-instances auto-scaling build-agents docker-events ecs-heartbeat