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    Edge Security Acceleration:Get started with Edge Containers

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    Edge Security Acceleration:Get started with Edge Containers

    Last Updated:Mar 28, 2025

    By creating an Edge Container, you can associate a containerized application with your website domain and access it with this domain name.

    Important

    Edge Container is currently in beta testing and provided to users who meet the test requirements free of charge. Contact us to apply for a trial.

    Create a container

    To use an Edge Container, perform five major steps: create an application, configure triggers, create versions, debug, and release.

    Step 1: Create an application

    An application is the basic unit for managing Edge Containers. Bind an Edge Security Acceleration (ESA) domain name to an application to provide external services.

    1. Log on to the ESA console. In the left navigation pane, select Edge Computing > Edge Container.

    2. Click Create Application, enter the Application Name and Service Port, and then click OK.

      • Application Name: It must start with a lowercase letter and end with a lowercase letter or digit, with a length of 6-128 bytes. It can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-).

      • Service Port: The port that the container uses to provide external services. Valid values: 1 to 65535.

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    Step 2: Create triggers

    Triggers enable Edge Containers to provide services externally. The domain binding feature lets you associate a containerized application with the website domain, after which ESA automatically creates a DNS record for the domain name. You can access the containerized application using this domain name.

    1. In the Edge Container list, click the target application ID or Details in the Actions column.

    2. Click Add Domain Name under the Triggers tab.

    3. Enter the Domain Name used to access the container, and click OK.

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    4. After the domain name is added, ESA assigns a DNS record for the associated domain name, with which you can access the containerized application.

    Step 3: Create a version

    Creating a version is required before you release an application. You can configure images, compute specifications, and probe methods.

    Note

    You cannot release another version until the current version is 100% released, but version rollback is allowed.

    1. In the Edge Container list, click the application ID or Details in the Actions column.

    2. Click Create Version under the Version Management tab.

    3. Enter the Version Name, Description, and Image Settings, and click OK to complete the creation.

    Version Information

    • Version Name: Must start with a lowercase letter and end with a lowercase letter or digit, with a length of 6 to 128 characters. It can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-). Version names must be unique.

    • Description: The description for the version.

    Image Settings

    • Image Name: Must start with a lowercase letter and end with a lowercase letter or digit, with a length of 6 to 128 characters. It can contain lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens (-). Image names must be unique.

    • Image Type:

      • Custom Image: Only the image address is required.

      • ACR Image:

        • Activate Container Registry and Build repositories and images in it. You can reference ESA Edge Container in Container Registry and authorize them to pull images.

        • Artifact Center: The cloud-native artifact center launched by Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR) provides secure and trusted base container images from Alibaba Cloud and OpenAnolis. These images cover base OS images, base language images, and AI- and big data-related images that can be used in application containerization. They support multiple system architectures, making business containerization more efficient and secure.

    Container Settings

    • Computing Specification: Select specifications of CPU and memory based on the application scale. Valid values: 1C2G, 2C4G, 2C8G, 4C8G, 4C16G, 8C16G, and 8C32G. The fees vary based on the specification.

    • Temporary Disk Capacity: Supported capacities include 512MB, 10GB, 20GB, and 30GB, of which only 512MB is free.

    • Startup Command: Start the service process after the container is created.

    • Probe Method: Valid values: HTTP, TCP, and COMMAND.

      • HTTP

        • Probe URL: Probe path, such as /test.

        • Probe Port: From 1 to 65535.

        • Probe Host: Host header of the HTTP request.

        • SCHEME: HTTP or HTTPS.

        • HEADER: Custom HTTP request header for a probe.

      • TCP

        • Probe port: From 1 to 65535.

      • COMMAND

        • The custom script. If the script returns 0, the probe is successful. Otherwise, the probe fails.

    Probe Parameters

    • Probe Duration: The duration between the time when a container is created and the time when the probe starts. Used in scenarios where the service takes a long time to start.

    • Timeout:

      • When set to HTTP, it indicates the response timeout.

      • When set to TCP, it indicates the TCP handshake timeout.

      • When set to COMMAND, it indicates the script running timeout.

    • Probe Interval: The interval between two probes.

    • Successes: In the removed state, the container is considered available and services are restored after the number of successful probes reaches this value.

    • Failures: In the active state, the container is considered unavailable and services are removed after the number of failed probes reaches this value.

    Advanced Commands

    • postStart: Initialize the system after the container is created but before the startup command is executed.

    • preStop: Used for graceful shutdown of the application before the container is destroyed.

    Environment Variable

    • Key: The name of the environment variable.

    • Value: The value of the environment variable.

    Step 4: Debug

    Before releasing to the Production Environment, we strongly recommend debugging in the Staging Environment that we provide. You can release different application versions in two environments, which are isolated from each other.

    1. In the Edge Container list, click the application ID or Details in the Actions column.

    2. Select the Versions tab, click Release in the Staging Environment section, choose the version to be released in the dialog box that appears, and then click Release.

      Note

      When the Status turns to Released, the release is complete in the test environment.

    3. Click Instance Logon in the Staging Environment section to enter the container, and then debug the application in the command window.

    4. In the Staging Environment column, click Instance Logon to view the logs generated during the application startup and running process.

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    Step 5: Release the version

    Edge Container versions support canary releases. You can specify the release percentage when releasing a version.

    1. In the Edge Container list, click the application ID or Details in the Actions column to go to the Versions tab.

    2. Click Release in the Production Environment area. In the dialog box that appears, select the version to be released and the release percentage.

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    3. Click Release. When the Status turns to Released, the version release is complete.

      Note

      Edge Containers support canary releases. A percentage of 100% indicates the release is complete and the released version becomes the baseline version.

      When the upgraded version fails to meet your needs, use the rollback feature to restore to the baseline. The rollback is complete when the status shows Rollbacked and the version rolls back to the baseline version.