Blobpack

Packaging Benthos configs for AWS Lambda was too exciting, now it's acceptably boring.

If all this still sounds too exciting and you just want to deploy Benthos on AWS Lambda, jump over to the Serverless Benthos Project Skeleton or the Benthos Plugin Project Skeleton.

Description

Benthos on AWS Lambda requires either a single config.yaml file inside its deployed .zip artifact or the config passed as an environment variable. Since AWS Lambda limits its environment variable size to 4 KB, even simple Benthos configs are too large to deploy.

This tool allows you to write and test Benthos configs as you normally would, i.e., splitting and sharing resources across multiple files. For each config you want to deploy, Blobpack merges the selected Benthos YAML files into a single config.yaml and packages it into a .zip file with Benthos for deployment to AWS Lambda.

This can be used with any tool that can deploy .zip artifacts to AWS Lambda. Since Serverless and the AWS CDK are both popular deployment solutions that support Node.js, this tool is distributed as an npm package.

This package exposes the CLI command blobpack and its underlying JavaScript API.

Installation

Add this as a dependency to your project using npm with

$ npm install --save-dev blobpack

Usage

Download the Benthos Lambda Archive

In order to create Benthos artifact to deploy to AWS Lambda, the upstream Benthos lambda archive must be downloaded locally to tmp.

To have this happen automatically after npm install, add this to your package.json,

{
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "blobpack install"
  },
  "blobpack": {
    "name": "benthos-lambda",
    "version": "4.10.0",
    "platform": "linux_amd64",
    "src": "https://github.com/benthosdev/benthos/releases/download"
  }
}

Create Serverless Artifacts

First, add a new build step and ensure it runs before deployment,

{
  "scripts": {
    "blobpack": "blobpack"
  }
}

Assuming you want to deploy the below Serverless function, you will need to generate the boring.zip artifact to deploy.

Tip: you can reuse the same artifact for multiple functions.

boring:
  handler: benthos-lambda
  package:
    artifact: dist/boring.zip
    individually: true
    exclude: ['*/**']
    include: []

First, add the artifacts section to the blobpack config. This will generate a new artifact to dist/boring.zip which uses config/boring.yaml and intelligently merges resources in both resources/outputs.yaml and node_modules/@my-org/blobd/resources/logger.yaml.

Tip: any top level keys which are not of type *_resources will still be included. If two files have the same key, the last one wins.

{
  "blobpack": {
    "artifacts": [
      {
        "name": "boring",
        "resources": ["outputs"],
        "node_modules/@my-org/blobd/resources": ["logger"]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Tip: put your common resources in an npm package like @my-org/blobd.

If you only need to package a single config file into the artifact, you can use this shorthand,

{
  "blobpack": {
    "artifacts": [
      "boring"
    ]
  }
}

If you want to merge a common set of resources into every config, you can use the include property,

{
  "blobpack": {
    "include": {
      "resources": ["logger"]
    },
    "artifacts": [
      "boring"
    ]
  }
}

CLI

  Usage: blobpack [command] [options]


  Commands:

    install        Download Benthos .zip
    build          Build .zip artifacts
    help           Display help

  Options:

    --version         Output the version number
    --config-path     Path to the JSON file containing the blobpack config
    --tmp-root        Path to a temporary working directory
    --config-root     Path to the directory containing the artifact configs
    --resources-root  Path to the directory all resources are relative to
    --dist-root       Path to the directory to output artifacts

Development and Testing

Quickstart

$ git clone https://github.com/razor-x/blobpack.git
$ cd blobpack
$ nvm install
$ npm install

Run the command below in a separate terminal window:

$ npm run test:watch

Primary development tasks are defined under scripts in package.json and available via npm run. View them with

$ npm run

Source code

The source code is hosted on GitHub. Clone the project with

$ git clone [email protected]:razor-x/blobpack.git

Requirements

You will need Node.js with npm and a Node.js debugging client.

Be sure that all commands run under the correct Node version, e.g., if using nvm, install the correct version with

$ nvm install

Set the active version for each shell session with

$ nvm use

Install the development dependencies with

$ npm install

Publishing

Use the npm version command to release a new version. This will push a new git tag which will trigger a GitHub action.

Publishing may be triggered using a workflow_dispatch on GitHub Actions.

GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions should already be configured: this section is for reference only.

The following repository secrets must be set on GitHub Actions:

• NPM_TOKEN: npm token for installing and publishing packages.

These must be set manually.

Secrets for Optional GitHub Actions

The version and format GitHub actions require a user with write access to the repository. Set these additional secrets to enable the action:

• GH_TOKEN: A personal access token for the user.
• GIT_USER_NAME: The GitHub user's real name.
• GIT_USER_EMAIL: The GitHub user's email.
• GPG_PRIVATE_KEY: The GitHub user's GPG private key.
• GPG_PASSPHRASE: The GitHub user's GPG passphrase.

These must be set manually.

Contributing

Please submit and comment on bug reports and feature requests.

To submit a patch:

1. Fork it (https://github.com/razor-x/blobpack/fork).
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature).
3. Make changes.
4. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature').
5. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature).
6. Create a new Pull Request.

License

This npm package is licensed under the MIT license.

Warranty

This software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the copyright holder or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.