[Bug]: aws_ecs_service fails with "Family should not be null or empty."

[durnote]

Terraform Core Version

0.12.31

AWS Provider Version

4.35

Affected Resource(s)

AWS ECS - CreateService fails when you try to create ECS service that uses EXTERNAL deployment controller

deployment_controller {
type = "EXTERNAL"
}

Expected Behavior

ECS Service should be created.

Actual Behavior

Error: error creating ECS service (service-name): InvalidParameterException: Family should not be null or empty.

Relevant Error/Panic Output Snippet

Error: error creating ECS service (svc-name): InvalidParameterException: Family should not be null or empty.

Terraform Configuration Files

resource "aws_ecs_service" "my_service_test" {
  name          = "svc-name"
  cluster       = "cluster-name"
  desired_count = 0

  scheduling_strategy = "REPLICA"
  deployment_controller {
    type = "EXTERNAL"
  }

  deployment_maximum_percent = "100"   
  deployment_minimum_healthy_percent = "0"
  propagate_tags = "TASK_DEFINITION"

  tags = {
    Name     = "svc-name"
    testing  = "yes"
  }
}

Steps to Reproduce

As you probably know, when using EXTERNAL deployment controller on ECS you should not provide task definition to the ECS during the creation of service. From AWS Cloud Trail logs I could confirm that latest Terraform provider still sends taskDefiniton as empty string. Looks like this was workinig fine until few days ago.

It seems that AWS updated ECS api recently and now requires that taskDefinition element is strictly not present in JSON request. I could confirm this by creating the same ECS service using AWS Cli and providing JSON without taskDefinition element.

aws ecs create-service --cluster cluster-name--service-name svc-name --region us-east-1 --cli-input-json file://ecsaws.json

If taskDefinition field is present in JSON file it fails with the same error:

"An error occurred (InvalidParameterException) when calling the CreateService operation: Family should not be null or empty."

Debug Output

Just attaching Cloud Trail log that confirms Terraform providers is sending taskDefinition in API request as empty string "".

"taskDefinition": ""

Full event

{
    "eventVersion": "1.08",
    "eventTime": "2022-10-17T17:52:47Z",
    "eventSource": "ecs.amazonaws.com ",
    "eventName": "CreateService",
    "awsRegion": "us-east-1",
    "userAgent": "APN/1.0 HashiCorp/1.0 Terraform/0.12.31 (+https://www.terraform.io ) terraform-provider-aws/dev (+https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/aws ) aws-sdk-go/1.44.114 (go1.18.4; linux; amd64)",
    "errorCode": "InvalidParameterException",
    "errorMessage": "Family should not be null or empty.",
    "requestParameters": {
        "capacityProviderStrategy": [],
        "cluster": "cluster-name",
        "deploymentConfiguration": {
            "maximumPercent": 100,
            "minimumHealthyPercent": 0
        },
        "deploymentController": {
            "type": "EXTERNAL"
        },
        "desiredCount": 0,
        "enableECSManagedTags": false,
        "enableExecuteCommand": false,
        "propagateTags": "TASK_DEFINITION",
        "schedulingStrategy": "REPLICA",
        "serviceName": "svc-name",
        "createdBy": "arn:aws:iam::--SENSITIVE-REMOVED--",
        "taskDefinition": ""

    },
    "responseElements": null,
    "requestID": "96483ddc-a949-4d04-b557-7f775836d914",
    "eventID": "f8d4c080-5121-45ad-90ad-eae7b26bd92a",
    "readOnly": false,
    "eventType": "AwsApiCall",
    "managementEvent": true,
    "recipientAccountId": "SENSITIVE-REMOVED",
    "eventCategory": "Management",
    "tlsDetails": {
        "tlsVersion": "TLSv1.2",
        "cipherSuite": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256",
        "clientProvidedHostHeader": "ecs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com "
    }
}

Panic Output

No response

Important Factoids

No response

References

No response

Would you like to implement a fix?

No response

[github-actions]

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[durnote]

I hope this should be easy fix. All we need is to make sure when Terraform creates ECS with external deployment controller to ignore taskDefinition. Not even providing it as an empty string.

[durnote]

Update: Just confirmed the issue is also present on latest Terraform v1.3.3 using latest aws provider (4.35).

Error: error creating ECS service (svc-name): InvalidParameterException: Family should not be null or empty.

Please note - this issue blocks anyone to create ECS service that uses EXTERNAL deploy controller. I think it should be prioritized accordingly.

[aoskotsky-amplify]

I am also seeing this bug for my EXTERNAL deployment controller services

[jusunglee]

I cannot even pass a valid task definition name as a parameter to workaround this issue

[sgirones]

here is a fix if you want to upvote: #27390

tested myself and works

[walter-hernandez]

Currently experiencing the same bug. Let's wait for the maintainers to merge your PR #27390 @sgirones

[durnote]

Thanks everyone!

[github-actions]

This functionality has been released in v4.37.0 of the Terraform AWS Provider. Please see the Terraform documentation on provider versioning or reach out if you need any assistance upgrading.

For further feature requests or bug reports with this functionality, please create a new GitHub issue following the template. Thank you!

[github-actions]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.
If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.