Using Subtrace on Elastic Container Service (ECS)

If you deploy your application on AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS), Subtrace is the easiest way to monitor the network activity in your cluster in realtime.

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Updating your task to support Subtrace

1. Open ECS → Task definitions, go to your task and click Create new revision with JSON.

2. In the JSON editor, add the SYS_PTRACE Linux capability to your container linuxParameters field:

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   "linuxParameters": {
     "capabilities": {
       "add": ["SYS_PTRACE"]
     }
   },
   

   The SYS_PTRACE capability is required because it’s what allows Subtrace to automatically monitor network activity without any code changes or root privileges. The ECS UI does not expose this field, hence the JSON-based update to the task definition.

   Set the API token that you created in the Subtrace dashboard as an environment variable:

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   "environment": [
     {
       "name": "SUBTRACE_TOKEN",
       "value": "subt_****************"
     }
   ]
   

   As an example, here’s what the task JSON should look like:

   

3. Click Create to create a new task revision.

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Deploying a new revision of your service

4. Back in Clusters → Services → my-app-service, click on Update service.

5. In the dropdown, select the revision you just created (or leave blank for “latest”).

6. Click Update at the bottom. ECS will spin up a new task with the new definition; when it’s healthy, the old one will be stopped.

7. Go to the Subtrace UI and see a realtime stream of all network activity in your service.