aws / aws/containers-roadmap

Feature request: override mount points for each task

Open
#355 17 comments 35 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
ECS Proposed
Dominant language
Shell
Stars
5.4k
Forks
334
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Hi Team,

Would it be possible to introduce an option to override volume mount path for each task? Right now, we have to register a new task definition just so we could change the mount path on a per-container basis. This introduces additional headache in how to keep track of various definitions, and is also rate limited by the task registration rate.

Our use case is batch processing of various datasets, where the container parameters don't change but the location of the dataset on the local host must be unique for each container/task. E.g. we would have all of our datasets under `/datasets/` on the host, where `job_id` is unique for each task. One workaround is to pass an environmental variable `JOB_ID` and have each container read/write to its prefixed location, e.g. if `/datasets` is mounted to `/data` in all containers, then each container would gracefully access only `/data/`. However, this provides only minimal isolation of tasks in untrusted environments. I.e. if one task 'misbehaves', it can access everything under `/data`, including datasets used by other tasks.

It seems like Docker _run_'s `-v` option maps directly to the `containerPath` option of a task definition, so is there any reason it cannot be currently overridden for each task, just like environmental variables? We wouldn't even need to change the volume itself, which can remain an immutable part of the task definition.

Thanks

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reviewing ECS task definitions and the Docker run -v comparison described in the issue, then examine how environment-variable overrides work per task. Check the surrounding AWS container-service documentation and roadmap context; done would be a clear design or implemented support for task-specific mount paths without registering a new task definition.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
aws, docker
Domain
cloud, devops
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.