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#Lambda + API Gateway Example

This example uses Twilio to save an image from your mobile phone to the AWS cloud. A user sends an image using MMS to a Twilio phone number which sends a request to an Amazon API Gateway endpoint that triggers a Lambda function. The app then returns a publicly accessible link to the image in AWS S3. This app uses AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB & S3. It is also 100% serverless!

NOTE: The project has been updated to use AWS Serverless Application Model (AWS SAM)

##Architecture

Architecture

Building the App

Step-by-step on how to configure, develop & deploy this app on AWS.

Pre-Requisites

  1. Sign-in to AWS or Create an Account.
  2. Pick a region in the console and be consistent throughout this app. Use either us-east-1, us-west-2 & eu-west-1.
  3. Create a table in DynamoDB with a single Hash named fromNumber for primary key of type String. We don't need any additional indexes and you can keep the read/write capacity at 1 for this example.
  4. Create an S3 bucket to ingest MMS images.
  5. Create/login to a Twilio account & create a phone number with MMS capability.

NEW Serverless Application Model (SAM) Deployment

In the AWS Region you plan to deploy, make sure you have an existing Amazon S3 bucket in which SAM can create the deployment artifacts.

Else create a new bucket using the following AWS CLI command:

aws s3 mb s3://<your-bucket-name>

Before deploying the project to SAM for the first time, you'll need to update some variables in lambda_function.py and template.yaml/swagger.yaml (found in sam/ folder).

# swagger.yaml
# <<region>> : AWS region set in Pre-Requisites, referenced twice in swagger.yaml
# <<accountId>> : your global AWS account ID (found in MyAccount)
uri: arn:aws:apigateway:<<region>>:lambda:path/2015-03-31/functions/arn:aws:lambda:<<region>>:<<accountId>>:function:${stageVariables.LambdaFunctionName}/invocations

# template.yaml
CodeUri: s3://<bucket-name>/lambda_function.py.zip # name of S3 bucket created in Pre-Requiisites
DefinitionUri: s3://<bucket>/swagger.yaml # name of S3 bucket created in Pre-Requisites

Generating the Lambda code

Connect to a 64-bit Amazon Linux instance via SSH.

ssh -i key.pem ec2-user@public-ip-address

Ensure basic build requirements are installed.

sudo yum install python27-devel python27-pip gcc

Install native dependencies required by Pillow.

sudo yum install libjpeg-devel zlib-devel

Create and activate a virtual environment.

virtualenv ~/lambda-apigateway-twilio-tutorial

source ~/lambda-apigateway-twilio-tutorial/bin/activate

Install libraries in the virtual environment.

pip install Pillow

pip install boto3

pip install twilio

Install git.

sudo yum install git-all

Clone this repo and update lambda_function.py.

# lambda_function.py
account_sid = "account_sid" # Twilio account SID
auth_token = "auth_token" # Twilio auth token
phone_number = "phone_number" # Twilio phone number
dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb', '_region') # AWS region set in Pre-Requisites
table_users = dynamodb.Table('table_name') # name of DyanmoDB created in Pre-Requisites

Run bash ./create_lambda_package.sh which will create the lambda_function.zip.

Download the .zip file using a command like scp -i key.pem ec2-user@public_ip_address:/path/to/file . where /path/to/file can be determined by readlink -f lambda_function.zip.

Deploying via SAM

Upload both swagger.yaml and lambda_function.zip into the S3 bucket.

To deploy the project for the first time with SAM, and for each subsequent code update, run both of the following AWS CLI commands in order.

You can use the basic_lambda_function.py as the reference for a simple backend to test the end to end flow

aws cloudformation package \
--template-file template.yaml \
--output-template-file template-out.yaml \
--s3-bucket <your-s3-bucket-name>

aws cloudformation deploy \
--template-file <path-to-file/template-out.yaml \
--stack-name <STACK_NAME> \
--capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM

After executing the cloudformation deployment, you'll need to navigate to IAM > Roles > STACK_NAME-LambdaFunctionRole-UNIQUE_STRING and attach the AmazonS3FullAccess and AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess policies to enable the Lambda function with sufficient permissions.

(Blog reference) Manually creating the API Gateway and Lambda deployment

This section has been retained for users who want to refer to the blog post or want to manually create the API Gateway and Lambda resources

Lambda

  1. Create a new Lambda function. I've provided the function, so we can skip a blueprint.
  2. Give it a name and description. Use Python 2.7 for runtime.
  3. Use the given Lambda function, lambda_function.py. Read through the module and provide a few variables: Twilio credentials, DynamoDB table name & region and S3 ingest bucket. We will upload as a .zip because our function requires a few external libraries, such as Twilio Python SDK. Compress httplib2, pytz, twilio & lambda_function.py and upload as a .zip file.
  4. The Lambda function handler tells Lambda what .py module to use and corresponding method. Ex. main_function.lambda_handler would call the method def lambda_handler() inside main_function.py. Let's call it lambda_function.lambda_handler to match lambda_function.py.
  5. Select the role we created earlier in the housekeeping steps.
  6. In advanced settings, I recommend changing Timeout to 10 seconds (httplib2 is a bit needy). Currently, max timeout is 60 seconds.
  7. Review & create function.

API Gateway

  1. Create a new API. Give it a name and description. This will be our RESTful endpoint.
  2. Create a resource. The path should be /addphoto , for example.
  3. We need to add a method to this resource. Create a GET method with Lambda integration and select the function we created earlier. API Gateway isn't able to process POST requests that are URL encoded, so we are using GET as a workaround.
  4. Now let's setup the Integration Request. Twilio's GET request will be of type application-x-www-form-urlencoded. This Integration step will map this type to a JSON object, which Lambda requires. In the Integration Requests page create a mapping template. Content-type is application/json and template:
{
    "body" : "$input.params('Body')",
    "fromNumber" :  "$input.params('From')",
    "image" : "$input.params('MediaUrl0')",
    "numMedia" : "$input.params('NumMedia')"
}

More on Intergration Requests. $input.params() parse the request object for the corresponding variable and allows the mapping template to build a JSON object. Screenshot 5. Let's ensure the response is correct. Twilio requires valid XML. Change the response model for 200 to Content-type: application/xml. Leave models empty. 6. Lambda cannot return proper XML, so API Gateway needs to build this. This is done in Integration response as another mapping template. This time we want to create Content-type: application/xml and template:

#set($inputRoot = $input.path('$'))
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
    <Message>
        <Body>
            $inputRoot
        </Body>
    </Message>
</Response>

Our Lambda function solely returns a string of the SMS body. Here we build the XML object and use $inputRoot as the string. 7. Now let's deploy this API, so we can test it! Click the Deploy API button.

Connecting the dots & Testing

  1. We should now have a publically accessible GET endpoint. Ex: https://xxxx.execute-api.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod/addphoto
  2. Point your Twilio number to this endpoint. Screenshot Recommend creating a Progammable SMS > Messaging Service (Inbound Settings > Request URL) and assigning it your Phone Number > Messaging > Messaging Service > MESSAGING_SERVICE_NAME.
  3. The app should now be connected. Let's review: Twilio sends a GET request with MMS image, fromNumber and body to API Gateway. API Gateway transforms the GET request into a JSON object, which is passed to a Lambda function. Lambda processes the object and writes the user to DynamoDB and writes the image to S3. Lambda returns a string which API Gateway uses to create an XML object for Twilio's response to the user.
  4. First, let's test the Lambda function. Click the Actions dropdown and Configure test event. We need to simulate the JSON object passed by API Gateway. Example:
{ 
  "body" : "hello",
  "fromNumber" : "+19145554224" ,
  "image" : "https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/AC361180d5a1fc4530bdeefb7fbba22338/Messages/MM7ab00379ec67dd1391a2b13388dfd2c0/Media/ME7a70cb396964e377bab09ef6c09eda2a",
  "numMedia" : "1"
}

Click Test. At the bottom of the page you view Execution result and the log output in Cloudwatch logs. This is very helpful for debugging.
5. Testing API Gateway requires a client that sends requests to the endpoint. I personally like the Chrome Extension Advanced Rest Client Send the endpoint a GET request and view its response. Ensure the S3 link works. You can also test by sending an MMS to phone number and checking the Twilio logs.

##Troubleshooting

  1. Ensure your Lambda function is using the correct IAM role. The role must have the ability to write/read to DynamoDB and S3.
  2. All Lambda interactions are logged in Cloudwatch logs. View the logs for debugging.
  3. Lambda/API Gateway Forums

Please Note: Twilio is a 3rd party service that has terms of use that the user is solely responsible for complying with (https://www.twilio.com/legal/tos)