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    Amazon ECS

    This guide shows you how to deploy Prisma Cloud Defenders in an ECS cluster.
    Defender protects your containerized environment according to the policies you set in Prisma Cloud Console. It runs as a service in your ECS cluster. The parameters of the service are described in a task definition, and the task definition is written in JSON format. To automatically deploy an instance of Defender on each node in your cluster, you’ll run the Defender task as a daemon service.
    This guide assumes you know very little about AWS ECS. As such, it is extremely prescriptive, and includes step for building your cluster. If you are already familiar with AWS ECS and do not need assistance navigating the interface, simply read the section synopsis, which summarizes all key configurations.

    Cluster context

    Prisma Cloud can segment your environment by cluster. For example, you might have three clusters: test, staging, and production. The cluster pivot in Prisma Cloud lets you inspect resources and administer security policy on a per-cluster basis.

    Cluster awareness across the product

    Radar lets you explore your environment cluster-by-cluster. Various scan reports and audits include the relevant cluster name to provide environment context. You can also create stored filters (also known as collections) based on cluster names. Finally, you can scope policy by cluster. Vulnerability and compliance rules for container images and hosts, runtime rules for container images, and trusted images rules can all be scoped by cluster name.

    Determine cluster name

    Defenders in each DaemonSet are responsible for reporting which resources belong to which cluster. When deploying a Defender DaemonSet, Prisma Cloud tries to determine the cluster name through introspection. First, it tries to retrieve the cluster name from the cloud provider. As a fallback, it tries to retrieve the name from the kubeconfig file (the cluster name will be taked from the server field). Finally, you can override these mechanisms by manually specifying a cluster name when deploying your Defender DaemonSet.
    Both the Prisma Cloud UI and twistcli tool accept an option for manually specifying a cluster name. Let Prisma Cloud automatically detect the name for provider-managed clusters. Manually specify names for self-managed clusters, such as those built with kops.
    There are some things to consider when manually naming clusters:
    • If you specify the same name for two or more clusters, they’re treated as a single cluster.
    • For GCP, if you have clusters with the same name in different projects, they’re treated as a single cluster. Consider manually specifying a different name for each cluster.
    • Manually specifying names isn’t supported in
      Manage > Defenders > Manage > DaemonSet
      . This page lets you deploy and manage DaemonSets directly from the Prisma Cloud UI. For this deployment flow, cluster names are retrieved from the cloud provider or the supplied kubeconfig only.
    If you wish to change the cluster name determined by Prisma Cloud Compute, or the name you manually set for the cluster, you must redeploy the Defenders DaemonSet and specify the new name. Notice that after changing the name, historical records for audits and incidents, will keep the cluster name from their creation time. The new cluster name will only apply for future records. Also, if you already created collections using the old cluster name, these need to be manually updated with the new name.

    Create a cluster

    Create an empty cluster named pc-ecs-cluster. Later, you will create launch configurations and auto-scaling groups to start EC2 instances in the cluster.
    1. Log into the AWS Management Console.
    2. Go to
      Services > Containers > Elastic Container Service
      .
    3. Click
      Create Cluster
      .
    4. Select
      Networking only
      , then click
      Next Step
      .
    5. Enter a cluster name, such as
      pc-ecs-cluster
      .
    6. Click
      Create
      .

    Deploy Defender

    Create worker nodes in your ECS cluster, create a task definition for the Prisma Cloud Defender, and then create a service of type Daemon to deploy Defender to every node in the cluster.
    If you already have worker nodes in your cluster, skip directly to creating the Defender task definition.

    Create a launch configuration for worker nodes

    Create a launch configuration named pc-worker-node that:
    • Runs the Amazon ECS-Optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI.
    • Uses the ecsInstanceRole IAM role.
    • Runs a user data script that joins the pc-ecs-cluster and runs the commands required to install Defender.
    1. Go to
      Services > Compute > EC2
      .
    2. In the left menu, click
      Auto Scaling > Launch Configurations
      .
    3. Click
      Create Launch Configuration
    4. In
      Name
      , enter a name for your launch configuration, such as
      pc-worker-node
      .
    5. In Amazon machine image, select
      Amazon ECS-Optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI
      .
      You can get a complete list of per-region Amazon ECS-optimized AMIs from here.
    6. Choose an instance type, such as
      t2.medium
      .
    7. Under
      Additional configuration
      :
      1. In
        IAM instance profile
        , select
        ecsInstanceRole
        .
      2. Under
        User data
        , select
        Text
        , and paste the following code snippet:
        #!/bin/bash
echo ECS_CLUSTER=pc-ecs-cluster >> /etc/ecs/ecs.config
        Where:
        • ECS_CLUSTER must match your cluster name. If you’ve named your cluster something other than pc_ecs_cluster, then modify your user data script accordingly.
      3. (Optional) In
        IP Address Type
        , select
        Assign a public IP address to every instance
        .
        With this option, you can easily SSH to this instance to troubleshoot issues.
    8. Under
      Security groups
      :
      1. Select
        Select an existing security group
        .
      2. Select
        pc-security-group
        .
    9. Under
      Key pair (login)
      , select an existing key pair, or create a new key pair so that you can access your instances.
    10. Click
      Create launch configuration
      .

    Create an auto scaling group for worker nodes

    Launch two worker nodes into your cluster.
    1. Go to
      Services > Compute > EC2
      .
    2. In the left menu, click
      Auto Scaling > Auto Scaling Groups
      .
    3. Click
      Create an Auto Scaling group
      .
    4. In
      Choose launch template or configuration
      :
      1. In
        Auto Scaling group Name
        , enter
        pc-worker-autoscaling
        .
      2. In
        Launch template
        , click
        Switch to launch configuration
        .
      3. Select
        pc-worker-node
        .
      4. Click
        Next
        .
    5. Under
      Configure settings
      :
      1. In
        VPC
        , select your default VPC.
      2. In
        Subnet
        , select a public subnet, such as 172.31.0.0/20.
      3. Click
        Next
        .
    6. In
      Configure advanced options
      , accept the defaults, and click
      Next
      .
    7. In
      Configure group size and scaling policies
      :
      1. Set
        Desired capacity
         to
        2
        .
      2. Leave
        Minimum capacity
         at
        1
        .
      3. Set
        Maximum capacity
         to
        2
        .
      4. Click
        Skip to review
        .
    8. Review the configuration and click
      Create Auto Scaling Group
      .
      After the auto scaling group spins up (it will take some time), validate that your cluster has three container instances.
      1. Go to
        Services > Containers > Elastic Container Service
        .
      2. The count for
        Container instances
         in your cluster should now be a total of two.

    Create a Prisma Cloud Defender task definition

    Generate a task definition for Defender in Prisma Cloud Console.
    1. Log into Prisma Cloud Compute Console.
    2. Go to
      Manage > Defenders > Deploy > Defenders
      .
    3. In
      Deployment method
      , select
      Orchestrator
      .
    4. For orchestrator type, select
      ECS
      .
    5. In
      Specify a cluster name
      , leave the field blank.
      Console will automatically retrieve the cluster name from AWS. Only enter a value if you want to override the cluster name assigned in AWS.
    6. In
      Specify ECS task name
      , leave the field blank.
      By default, the task name is
      pc-defender
      .
    7. Click
      Download
       to download the task definition.
    8. Log into AWS.
    9. Go to
      Services > Containers > Elastic Container Service
      .
    10. In the left menu, click
      Task Definitions
      .
    11. Click
      Create new Task Definition
      .
    12. In
      Step 1: Select launch type compatibility
      , select
      EC2
      , then click
      Next step
      .
    13. In
      Step 2: Configure task and container definitions
      , scroll to the bottom of the page and click
      Configure via JSON
      .
    14. Delete the contents of the window, and replace it with the Prisma Cloud Console task definition you just generated.
    15. Click
      Save
      .
    16. (Optional) Change the name of the task definition before creating it. The default name is
      pc-defender
      .
    17. Click
      Create
      .

    Start the Prisma Cloud Defender service

    Create the Defender service using the task definition. With Daemon scheduling, ECS schedules one Defender per node.
    1. Go to
      Services > Containers > Elastic Container Service
      .
    2. In the left menu, click
      Clusters
      .
    3. Click on your cluster.
    4. In the
      Services
       tab, click
      Create
      .
    5. In
      Step 1: Configure service
      :
      1. For
        Launch type
        , select
        EC2
        .
      2. For
        Task Definition
        , select
        pc-defender
        .
      3. In
        Service Name
        , enter
        pc-defender
        .
      4. In
        Service Type
        , select
        Daemon
        .
      5. Click
        Next Step
        .
    6. In
      Step 2: Configure network
      , accept the defaults, and click
      Next step
      .
    7. In
      Step 3: Set Auto Scaling
      , accept the defaults, and click
      Next step
      .
    8. In
      Step 4: Review
      , click
      Create Service
      .
    9. Click
      View Service
      .
    10. Verify that you have Defenders running on each node in your ECS cluster.
      1. Go to your Prisma Cloud Console and view the list of Defenders in
        Manage > Defenders > Manage
        . There should be two new Defenders that have been connected for a few minutes, one for each ECS instance in the cluster.

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