psycopg2 Python Library for AWS Lambda

This is a custom compiled psycopg2 C library for Python. Due to AWS Lambda missing the required PostgreSQL libraries in the AMI image, we needed to compile psycopg2 with the PostgreSQL libpq.so library statically linked libpq library instead of the default dynamic link.

How to use

Python2.*

Just copy the psycopg2 directory into your AWS Lambda zip package.

Python 3.6

Just copy the psycopg2-3.6 directory into your AWS Lambda project and rename it to psycopg2 before creating your AWS Lambda zip package.

Instructions on compiling this package from scratch

Here was the process that was used to build this package. You will need to perform these steps if you want to build a newer version of the psycopg2 library.

  1. Download the PostgreSQL source code and extract into a directory.
  2. Download the psycopg2 source code and extract into a directory.
  3. Go into the PostgreSQL source directory and execute the following commands:
  • ./configure --prefix {path_to_postgresql_source} --without-readline --without-zlib
  • make
  • make install
  1. Go into the psycopg2 source directory and edit the setup.cfg file with the following:
  • pg_config={path_to_postgresql_source/bin/pg_config}
  • static_libpq=1
  1. Execute python setup.py build in the psycopg2 source directory.

After the above steps have been completed you will then have a build directory and the custom compiled psycopg2 library will be contained within it. Copy this directory into your AWS Lambda package and you will now be able to access PostgreSQL from within AWS Lambda using the psycopg2 library!

Compiling with ssl support

To compile with ssl support steps 3 and 4 above become.

  1. Go into the PostgreSQL source directory and execute the following commands:
  • ./configure --prefix {path_to_postgresql_source} --without-readline --without-zlib --with-openssl
  • make
  • make install
  1. Go into the psycopg2 source directory and edit the setup.cfg file with the following:
  • pg_config={path_to_postgresql_source/bin/pg_config}
  • static_libpq=1
  • libraries=ssl crypto

All other steps are identical.