Virtual routers - AWS App Mesh
Creating a virtual routerDeleting a virtual router

Virtual routers

Important

End of support notice: On September 30, 2026, AWS will discontinue support for AWS App Mesh. After September 30, 2026, you will no longer be able to access the AWS App Mesh console or AWS App Mesh resources. For more information, visit this blog post Migrating from AWS App Mesh to Amazon ECS Service Connect.

Virtual routers handle traffic for one or more virtual services within your mesh. After you create a virtual router, you can create and associate routes for your virtual router that direct incoming requests to different virtual nodes.

Virtual router diagram showing HTTP route with prefix and targets B and B' for different service versions.

Any inbound traffic that your virtual router expects should be specified as a listener.

Creating a virtual router

AWS Management Console
To create a virtual router using the AWS Management Console
Note

When creating a Virtual Router, you must add a namespace selector with a label to identify the list of namespaces to associate Routes to the created Virtual Router.

  1. Open the App Mesh console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/appmesh/.

  2. Choose the mesh that you want to create the virtual router in. All of the meshes that you own and that have been shared with you are listed.

  3. Choose Virtual routers in the left navigation.

  4. Choose Create virtual router.

  5. For Virtual router name, specify a name for your virtual router. Up to 255 letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores are allowed.

  6. (Optional) For Listener configuration, specify a Port and Protocol for your virtual router. The http listener permits connection transition to websockets. You can click Add Listener to add multiple listeners. The Remove button will remove that listener.

  7. Choose Create virtual router to finish.

AWS CLI

To create a virtual router using the AWS CLI.

Create a virtual router using the following command and input JSON (replace the red values with your own):

  1. aws appmesh create-virtual-router \
     --cli-input-json file://create-virtual-router.json

  2. Contents of example create-virtual-router.json

  3. {
    "meshName": "meshName",
    "spec": {
        "listeners": [
            {
                "portMapping": {
                    "port": 80,
                    "protocol": "http"
                }
            }
        ]
    },
    "virtualRouterName": "routerName"
}

  4. Example output:

    {
    "virtualRouter": {
        "meshName": "meshName",
        "metadata": {
            "arn": "arn:aws:appmesh:us-west-2:210987654321:mesh/meshName/virtualRouter/routerName",
            "createdAt": "2022-04-06T11:49:47.216000-05:00",
            "lastUpdatedAt": "2022-04-06T11:49:47.216000-05:00",
            "meshOwner": "123456789012",
            "resourceOwner": "210987654321",
            "uid": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-11111EXAMPLE",
            "version": 1
        },
        "spec": {
            "listeners": [
                {
                    "portMapping": {
                        "port": 80,
                        "protocol": "http"
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        "status": {
            "status": "ACTIVE"
        },
        "virtualRouterName": "routerName"
    }
}

For more information on creating a virtual router with the AWS CLI for App Mesh, see the create-virtual-router command in the AWS CLI reference.

Deleting a virtual router

Note

You cannot delete a virtual router if it has any routes or if it is specified as a provider for any virtual service.

AWS Management Console
To delete a virtual router using the AWS Management Console

  1. Open the App Mesh console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/appmesh/.

  2. Choose the mesh that you want to delete a virtual router from. All of the meshes that you own and that have been shared with you are listed.

  3. Choose Virtual routers in the left navigation.

  4. In the Virtual Routers table, choose the virtual router that you want to delete and select Delete in the top right corner. To delete a virtual router, your account ID must be listed in either the Mesh owner or the Resource owner columns of the virtual router.

  5. In the confirmation box, type delete and then click on Delete.

AWS CLI
To delete a virtual router using the AWS CLI

  1. Use the following command to delete your virtual router (replace the red values with your own):

    aws appmesh delete-virtual-router \
     --mesh-name meshName \
     --virtual-router-name routerName

  2. Example output:

    {
    "virtualRouter": {
        "meshName": "meshName",
        "metadata": {
            "arn": "arn:aws:appmesh:us-west-2:210987654321:mesh/meshName/virtualRouter/routerName",
            "createdAt": "2022-04-06T11:49:47.216000-05:00",
            "lastUpdatedAt": "2022-04-07T10:49:53.402000-05:00",
            "meshOwner": "123456789012",
            "resourceOwner": "210987654321",
            "uid": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-11111EXAMPLE",
            "version": 2
        },
        "spec": {
            "listeners": [
                {
                    "portMapping": {
                        "port": 80,
                        "protocol": "http"
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        "status": {
            "status": "DELETED"
        },
        "virtualRouterName": "routerName"
    }
}

For more information on deleting a virtual router with the AWS CLI for App Mesh, see the delete-virtual-router command in the AWS CLI reference.