'exec user process caused: exec format error' in AWS Fargate Service

Question

I am totally new to AWS but I've been running my dockerized application locally for months now with no issues. Now that I am trying to deploy this app via AWS ECS/Fargate, my containers are stopped repeatedly with this linux error: standard_init_linux.go:219: exec user process caused: exec format error . This error seems to suggest that the architecture in Fargate does not recognize one of the Linux commands I'm running but I can't find a good answer anywhere for how to find the architecture that's running or how to track down the specific command that's causing the issue.

These are my Dockerfiles for the frontend and backend. The project is built in the MERN stack and is split into the frontend (React) and the backend (MongoDB/Express)

Frontend:

FROM alpine:3.10

ENV NODE_VERSION 15.9.0

WORKDIR /frontend

COPY package*.json ./

RUN apk add --no-cache nodejs npm

# some packages rely on gyp so we need this
# pulled from https://github.com/nodejs/docker-node/issues/282
RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .gyp \
        python \
        make \
        g++ \
    && npm install

COPY . .

EXPOSE 3000

CMD ["npm", "start"]

Backend:

FROM alpine:3.10

ENV NODE_VERSION 15.9.0

WORKDIR /backend

COPY package*.json ./

RUN apk add --no-cache nodejs npm

# some packages rely on gyp so we need this
# pulled from https://github.com/nodejs/docker-node/issues/282
RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .gyp \
        python \
        make \
        g++ \
    && npm install --silent\
    && apk del .gyp

COPY ./ ./

EXPOSE 8080

CMD ["npm", "start"]

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I think you've identified your problem.

You're building your images on Apple's M1 chip, which is an ARM architecture. Fargate is probably running on the more common Intel x86-64 architecture. Images you build locally on your Mac aren't going to be able to run there.

The easiest solution is probably to have your images build automatically in Docker Hub (or use a Github Action to build them in Github ).

I don't have all the details about how you're building and deploying your images, so it's possible I'm missing some details.

Answer 2

Short answer: docker buildx build --platform=linux/amd64 -t <image-name>.

Answer 3

For anyone who comes back here, Docker now has ships with an experimental, multi-arch build command called buildx and you can specify the architectures and ship these containers together. This resolved my problem, so huge thank you to those above for pointing me in the right direction!

Answer 4

Images build on a particular architecture do not work on other architecture.

I tried to build an image on Mac M1 chip and pushed it to dockerhub. I am trying to run a container on EKC cluster with Amazon Linux worker nodes which eventually failed. Below is the solution I found and worked perfectly for me.

Flask Application

#./usr/bin/env python3 from flask import Flask app = Flask("basicApp") @app:route("/") def sayHello(): return "<h4 style='color:teal'>Hello World.</h4>" if __name__ == "__main__": app.run()

Docker file

FROM python:3.7-alpine COPY flaskApp/app.py /app.py RUN chmod 755 /app.py RUN pip3 install flask ENTRYPOINT ["python3", "-m", "flask", "run", "--host=0.0.0.0", "-p", "3000"]

Kubernetes File

--- apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: flask-app labels: name: flask-app spec: containers: - name: flask-app image: vikrampruthvi5/flask-app:1.1 ports: - containerPort: 3000

Commands used docker buildx build --platform=linux/amd64 -t vikrampruthvi5/flask-app:1.1. docker push vikrampruthvi5/flask-app:1.1

Answer 5

As other answers have mentioned, this can happen when you build the docker image using an ARM processor and try to run on an x86 processor in Fargate.

As of 2021-11-23 Fargate now supports ARM architecture, but it can be a little tricky to find. Make sure you enable the "New ECS Experience" and then you'll see the option to use ARM when creating a new task definition.

Source: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECS/latest/developerguide/ecs-arm64.html

Answer 6

For some reason AWS Sage Maker does not like when we build from mac m1 but using target platform linux/amd64. Same code works if I use an intel mac instead.

Answer 7

On Mac M1 use:

FROM --platform=linux/amd64  alpine:3.10

Annoying pitfall I'm in every day. I feel your pain. Your docker desktop should show the AMD64 badge. I feel this should be the other way around, it should show the "with nothing and no-one compatible M1" badge when compiling local. Or both.