AWS ECS-RDS Port Forwarding CLI

A modern CLI tool for connecting to RDS databases through AWS ECS tasks using SSM Session Manager.

Features

• Port Forwarding: Easily forward RDS ports through ECS tasks
• ECS Exec: Execute commands in ECS containers with interactive UI
• Enable ECS Exec: Automatically enable ECS exec capability for services that need it

Quick Start

Interactive UI

npx ecs-pf connect

Example Usage

Interactive guided workflow

$ npx ecs-pf connect

Select Network Configuration
  Region      : ap-northeast-1
  RDS         : production-db
  (RDS port)  : 5432
  ECS Target  : api-task-abc123
  (ECS Cluster): production-cluster
  Local Port  : 8888

Connection established!
Database available at: localhost:8888

ECS Task Execution

Execute commands in ECS containers:

# Interactive mode
npx ecs-pf exec

# Direct execution
npx ecs-pf exec \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --cluster production-cluster \
  --task arn:aws:ecs:ap-northeast-1:123456789:task/production-cluster/abcdef123456 \
  --container web \
  --command "/bin/bash"

# Dry run for exec commands
npx ecs-pf exec --dry-run \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --cluster production-cluster \
  --task arn:aws:ecs:ap-northeast-1:123456789:task/production-cluster/abcdef123456 \
  --container web \
  --command "/bin/bash"

Enable ECS Exec

Enable ECS exec capability for services that don't have it enabled:

# Interactive mode - select services from all clusters
npx ecs-pf enable-exec --region ap-northeast-1

# Enable exec for specific service
npx ecs-pf enable-exec \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --cluster production-cluster \
  --service api-service

# Enable exec for all services in a cluster
npx ecs-pf enable-exec \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --cluster production-cluster

# Dry run to see what would be changed
npx ecs-pf enable-exec --dry-run \
  --region ap-northeast-1 \
  --cluster production-cluster \
  --service api-service

Prerequisites

Required AWS Setup

1. ECS Exec enabled: Your ECS cluster and tasks must have ECS exec capability
2. IAM permissions: Proper permissions for ECS, RDS, and SSM
3. AWS CLI: Installed and configured with appropriate credentials
4. Session Manager Plugin: Installed for AWS CLI

Development Requirements

• Node.js: 24.11.1 (managed by mise)
• To install mise: curl https://mise.run | sh
• After installing mise, run mise install in the project directory

Troubleshooting

No ECS clusters found with exec capability

This means your clusters don't have ECS exec enabled. Enable it with our built-in command:

# Interactive mode to select and enable services
npx ecs-pf enable-exec --region your-region

# Or enable manually with AWS CLI
aws ecs update-service \
  --cluster your-cluster \
  --service your-service \
  --enable-execute-command

AWS CLI not found

# Check if AWS CLI is installed
aws --version

# Check if it's in PATH
which aws

Session Manager Plugin not found

# Check if Session Manager Plugin is installed
session-manager-plugin --version

Install it from: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager-working-with-install-plugin.html

Connection fails

• Verify your ECS task is running and healthy
• Check that RDS instance is accessible from the ECS task
• Ensure security groups allow the connection
• Verify IAM permissions for SSM and ECS exec

Development

Local Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Run locally (interactive UI - default)
node dist/cli.js connect