node-canvas-lambda

A node-canvas layer for AWS Lambda

Install

AWS Console

Clone the repository
Log into AWS console and navigate to Lambda service
Click Layers in the sidebar
Click Create layer
Give the layer a name, description and upload the node10_canvas_layer.zip
Click Create
Follow the previous 3 steps and create a layer for canvas-lib64-layer.zip
Click Functions in the sidebar
Select your function in the function list
Click Layers in the Designer panel
In the Layers panel click Add a layer.
Choose Select from list of runtime compatible layers, select the layer Name and Version and click Add.

AWS CLI

Clone the repository and follow the steps below.

cd node-cavnas-lambda

aws s3 cp ./node10_canvas_layer.zip s3://<MY BUCKET>/node-canvas-layer.zip
aws s3 cp ./canvas-lib64-layer.zip s3://<MY BUCKET>/canvas-lib64-layer.zip

aws lambda publish-layer-version 
	--layer-name nodeCanvasLayer \
	--description A node-canvas layer \
	--content S3Bucket=<MY BUCKET>,S3Key=node-canvas-layer.zip,S3ObjectVersion=1

aws lambda publish-layer-version 
	--layer-name nodeCanvasLayer \
	--description A node-canvas layer \
	--content S3Bucket=<MY BUCKET>,S3Key=canvas-lib64-layer.zip,S3ObjectVersion=1

Why do I need to install `canvas-lib64-layer.zip`?

AWS Lambda documentation specifies that AWS Lambda uses the amzn2-ami-hvm-2.0.20190313-x86_64-gp2 AMI. This is clearly not the case otherwise /usr/lib64 would be the same in both environment. However if you set up a simple canvas function it will run on the AMI but will throw the following error in Lambda.

Error: libuuid.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:600:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:539:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:531:3)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:637:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:22:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/var/task/node_modules/canvas/lib/bindings.js:3:18)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:701:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:712:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:600:32)

If you compare /usr/lib64 inside a Lambda function and cross-reference it with the Amazon AMI you'll find that there are 5 libraries missing in the Lambda environment. Here are the missing libraries which are packaged in canvas-lib64-layer.zip:

libblkid.so.1, libmount.so.1 , libuuid.so.1 , libfontconfig.so.1, libpixman-1.so.0

How to create these layers yourself

1. Create the docker container

You'll need to install Docker on your local system if you don't have it then run the following:

docker build -t canvas-layers .
docker run -d --rm --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)",target=/out canvas-layers /out/layers.zip /root/layers

By default the Dockerfile installs and builds NPM dependencies against Node 10. If you would like to use another version of Node, append --build-arg NODE_VERSION=<YOUR NODE VERSION> to the above docker build command.

gurindersingh/node-canvas-lambda