# external\_links are ignored when creating a stack

**URL:** <https://forums.suse.com/t/external-links-are-ignored-when-creating-a-stack/2012>\
**Category:** Rancher 1.x\
**Created:** [March 12, 2016, 9:28am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-links-are-ignored-when-creating-a-stack/2012 "2016-03-12T09:28:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wayneconnolly](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/wayneconnolly/32/552_2.png) [@wayneconnolly](https://forums.suse.com/u/wayneconnolly)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 9:28am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-links-are-ignored-when-creating-a-stack/2012/1 "2016-03-12T09:28:02Z")

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Note: I have created a [video to show the whole process](http://proto.piel.io/rancher-external_links.mp4) and will explain also. (Right click and download as I dont think browsers can play h265 videos yet)

I have a stack that is called “Piel” that has a number of redis and mongo containers running in it. I wish to create a new stack and have external links that connects to the redis and mongo containers in the “Piel” stack.

When I do this I receive a JSON unmarshalling error but the stack builds successfully. After starting the stack there are no external\_links present. They can be manually added but this is less than ideal.

Below is the yaml.

docker-compose.yml  
`asset-service: image: redis external_links: - ${mongo_service}:mongo - ${mq_service}:mq`

rancher-compose.yml  
`.catalog: name: "PielAsset-AMQP" version: "0.1" description: "Piel Asset Service (AMQP)" questions: - variable: "mongo_service" type: "service" label: "Mongo Service" description: "Choose the Mongo database to connect the Asset service to!" default: "Piel/Mongo-Assets" - variable: "mq_service" type: "service" label: "MQ Host name" description: "Choose the RabbitMQ Host to connect the Asset service to!" default: "Piel/Piel-Redis-Cache"`

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**Author:** ![denise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@denise](https://forums.suse.com/u/denise)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/external-links-are-ignored-when-creating-a-stack/2012/2 "2016-03-13T17:39:45Z")

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It sounds like you are hitting this issue:

> <https://github.com/rancher/rancher/issues/3929>

Unfortunately, I have never been able to reproduce in house.

The JSON unmarshal seems to be a Docker issue, but not reliably reproducible.