---
title: Deploy One App
---

### Step 3 - Ship the Code to ECS

In this guide we have walked through what ufo does step by step.  First ufo builds the Docker image with `ufo docker build`.  Then it will build and register the ECS task definitions with the `ufo tasks` commands. Now we'll deploy the code to ECS.

```sh
ufo ship hi-web
```

By convention, ufo will ship the docker container to an ECS cluster with the same value as UFO_ENV, which defaults to prod.  So the command above is the same as:

```sh
ufo ship hi-web --cluster prod
UFO_ENV=production ufo ship hi-web --cluster prod
```

When you run `ufo ship hi-web`:

1. It builds the docker image.
2. Generates a task definition and registers it.
3. Updates the ECS service to use it.

If the ECS service hi-web does not yet exist, ufo will create the service for you. Ufo will also automatically create the ECS cluster. If you are relying on this tool to create the cluster, you still need to associate ECS Container Instances to the cluster yourself.

By convention, if the service has a container name web, you'll get prompted to create an ELB and specify a target group arn.  The ELB and target group must already exist. You can bypass the prompt and specify the target group ARN as part of the ship command or with the `--no-target-group-prompt` option.  The elb target group only gets associated with the ECS service if the service is being created for the first time.  If the service already exists then the `--target-group` parameter just gets ignored and the ECS task simply gets updated.  Example:


```bash
ufo ship hi-web --target-group=arn:aws:elasticloadbalancing:us-east-1:12345689:targetgroup/hi-web/12345
```

Let's go back to the original command and take a look at the output:

```sh
ufo ship hi-web
```

The output should look something like this (some of the output has been removed for conciseness):

```sh
$ ufo ship hi-web
Building docker image with:
  docker build -t tongueroo/hi:ufo-2017-06-12T06-46-12-a18aa30 -f Dockerfile .
...
Pushed tongueroo/hi:ufo-2017-06-12T06-46-12-a18aa30 docker image. Took 9s.
Building Task Definitions...
Generating Task Definitions:
  ufo/output/hi-web.json
  ufo/output/hi-worker.json
  ufo/output/hi-clock.json
Task Definitions built in ufo/output.
hi-web task definition registered.
Shipping hi-web...
hi-web service updated on stag cluster with task hi-web
Software shipped!
Cleaning up docker images...
Running: docker rmi tongueroo/hi:ufo-2017-06-11T20-32-16-a18aa30 tongueroo/hi:ufo-2017-06-11T20-27-44-bc80e84 tongueroo/hi:ufo-2017-06-11T20-02-18-bc80e84
```

Checking the ECS console you should see something like this:

<img src="/img/tutorials/ecs-console-ufo-ship.png" class="doc-photo" />

You have successfully shipped a docker image to ECS! 🍾🥂

### Skipping Previous Steps

The `ufo ship` command will automatically calls the steps we called manually in the previous pages: `ufo build` and `ufo tasks`.

If you would like to skip the first 2 steps you can use the `--no-docker` and `--no-tasks` flags:

```sh
ufo ship hi-web --no-docker --no-tasks
```

The output should look something like this:

```sh
Shipping hi-web...
hi-web service updated on stag cluster with task hi-web
Software shipped!
```

Normally you run everything together in one `ufo ship` command though.  Ufo takes a multiple step process and simplifies it down to a single command!

Congratulations 🎊 You have successfully built a Docker image, register it and deployed it to AWS ECS.

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