Use Docker volumes with Amazon ECS - Amazon Elastic Container Service
Considerations for using Docker volumes

Use Docker volumes with Amazon ECS

When using Docker volumes, the built-in local driver or a third-party volume driver can be used. Docker volumes are managed by Docker and a directory is created in /var/lib/docker/volumes on the container instance that contains the volume data.

To use Docker volumes, specify a dockerVolumeConfiguration in your task definition. For more information, see Volumes in the Docker documentation.

Some common use cases for Docker volumes are the following:

  • To provide persistent data volumes for use with containers

  • To share a defined data volume at different locations on different containers on the same container instance

  • To define an empty, nonpersistent data volume and mount it on multiple containers within the same task

  • To provide a data volume to your task that's managed by a third-party driver

Considerations for using Docker volumes

Consider the following when using Docker volumes:

  • Docker volumes are only supported when using the EC2 launch type or external instances.

  • Windows containers only support the use of the local driver.

  • If a third-party driver is used, make sure it's installed and active on the container instance before the container agent is started. If the third-party driver isn't active before the agent is started, you can restart the container agent using one of the following commands:

    • For the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI:

      sudo systemctl restart ecs

    • For the Amazon ECS-optimized Amazon Linux AMI:

      sudo stop ecs && sudo start ecs