node-canvas build for AWS Lambda

Question

I'm a Linux & node noob. I'm trying to run FabricJS (which requires node-canvas) in AWS Lambda. I've been able to follow the instructions to get up and running on an AWS Linux EC2, however, Lambda has me at my wits end. Anyone have any tips or pointers on how to get this compiled for AW Lambda?

Answer 1

I found this issue in the Node Canvas GitHub site. The questioner was trying to run FabricJS in Lambda as well. Here is the relevant section with an answer:

1. Make sure you're compiling this on the same AMI that lambda currently uses: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/current-supported-versions.html

2. Lambda runs at /var/task (that's the path when you unzip), so something.so at the root of the zip file will be at /var/task/something.so.

We then want to build our libraries using an "rpath":

   export LDFLAGS=-Wl,-rpath=/var/task/

1. Compile libraries according to: https://github.com/Automattic/node-canvas/wiki/Installation---Amazon-Linux-AMI-%28EC2%29

You may want to set the prefix= ~/canvas to have all the files in one place.

1. Install node-canvas with npm

2. cd node_modules/canvas; node-gyp rebuild

3. mkdir ~/pkg and cp the .so files (~/canvas/lib/*.so) there, using -L to dereference symlinks.

4. scp the pkg directory to the local lambda folder, possibly putting the files in the right places. (.so in root, node_modules/canvas with other libs). You'll probably want to rearrange this.

Answer 2

Here is a gulp plugin which could upload your files along with node-canvas and its dependencies binary specifically built for aws lambda.

NPM Package

'use strict';
//This is a sample gulp file that can be used. 
//npm install --save gulp gulp-zip gulp-awslambda 
const gulp   = require('gulp');
const zip    = require('gulp-zip');
const path   = require('path');
const lambda = require('gulp-awslambda');
const aws_lambda_node_canvas = require('./');

let runtime = 'nodejs4.3' // nodejs or nodejs4.3 

const lambda_params  = {
    FunctionName: 'NodeCanvas', /* Lambda function name */
    Description: 'Node canvas function in aws lambda', //Description for your lambda function 
    Handler: 'main.lambda_handler', //Assuming you will provide main.py file with a function called handler. 
    MemorySize: 128,
    Runtime: runtime,
    Role : 'ROLE_STRING',//eg:'arn:aws:iam::[Account]:role/lambda_basic_execution' 
    Timeout: 50
};

var opts = {
    region : 'ap-southeast-2'
}

gulp.task('default', () => {
    return gulp.src(['main.js', '!node_modules/**/*','!dist/**/*','!node_modules/aws-lambda-node-canvas/**/*']) //Your src files to bundle into aws lambda 
        .pipe(aws_lambda_node_canvas({runtime : runtime})) //Adds all the required files needed to run node-canvas in aws lambda 
        .pipe(zip('archive.zip'))
        .pipe(lambda(lambda_params, opts))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('dist')); //Also place the uploaded file 
});