Solving AWS ECS Connect Timeouts: Configure Default Settings Easily

If you’ve ever scratched your head over unexpected timeouts in your AWS ECS Service Connect applications, you’re not alone. I recently ran into a frustrating issue—my long-running requests were getting abruptly cut off. After some digging, I uncovered the quiet culprit: a default 15-second timeout for all HTTP, HTTPS, and gRPC requests in Service Connect.

The catch? Until recently, there was no way to modify this behavior.

But as of January 2024, AWS has rolled out a much-awaited feature—configurable timeout settings for ECS Service Connect. Let’s walk through what changed, how to update your configuration, and tips for avoiding future timeouts.

Understanding the Default Behavior

Before the 2024 update, every request routed through ECS Service Connect had a fixed 15-second timeout. No exceptions. That meant if your service didn’t respond in under 15 seconds, AWS would terminate the request—even if your app was still working just fine behind the scenes.

This default could be disastrous for long-polling APIs, background processing, or heavy compute tasks.

What Changed in January 2024?

Based on user feedback, AWS introduced the ability to define your own idle and per-request timeout values within the service definition.

Here are the two new parameters:

• idleTimeoutSeconds – Time before closing idle connections (default: 300s for TCP, 3600s for HTTP).

• perRequestTimeoutSeconds – Max time allowed per request (default: 15s).

These values can now be explicitly configured, giving you full control.

How to Configure Timeout Settings

✅ Prerequisites:

Make sure you have:

• The latest AWS CLI or an SDK version released after January 2024.

• IAM permissions to update ECS services.

🛠 Modify Your Service Definition:

Here’s a sample JSON configuration:

{

"serviceConnectConfiguration": {

"services": [

{

"clientAliases": [

{

"port": 3000

}

],

"portName": "your-port-name",

"timeout": {

"idleTimeoutSeconds": 3600,

"perRequestTimeoutSeconds": 3600

}

}

]

}

}

Key Elements:

• clientAliases.port: The port your app listens on.

• portName: Must match the one defined in your ECS task definition.

• timeout: Configure based on your app’s requirements.

⚠️ Note: AWS doesn’t document an upper limit, but excessively high values may cause scaling and deployment delays.

🧪 Apply and Verify

🚀 Deploy the Configuration:

Use your preferred deployment tool:

• AWS CLI

• CloudFormation

• Terraform

• ecspresso

🔍 Confirm the Update:

To verify if your timeouts are applied:

aws ecs describe-services \

--cluster your-cluster-name \

--services your-service-name

❗️Remember: If you don’t explicitly set a timeout, the default (15s) won’t show in the output—making debugging even trickier.

🧠 Considerations Before Cranking It Up

• No documented upper bound means flexibility, but don’t go overboard.

• Long-running requests may interfere with rolling deployments, auto-scaling, or even task health checks.

• Instead of only increasing timeouts, explore architectural alternatives like:

  • Asynchronous task queues

  • Background jobs

  • Webhooks or event-driven processing

✅ Conclusion

AWS ECS Service Connect’s default timeout of 15 seconds is easy to overlook—and even easier to fall victim to. But thanks to the 2024 update, you now have control over your request and connection timeouts.

So go ahead: tweak your settings, test carefully, and document your changes. Avoid silent service failures and ensure your app handles long-running requests without unnecessary headaches.

If this article helped you troubleshoot ECS issues, consider sharing it with your DevOps team or engineering Slack channels. And for more real-world AWS tips, follow me on LinkedIn and X for regular insights on cloud, devops, and systems design.

Happy deploying! ☁️🛠️