Running 'git' in AWS lambda

Question

I am trying to run git in AWS lambda to make a checkout of a repository.

This is my setup:

• I am using nodejs 4.3
• I am not using nodegit because I

Answer 1

The issue is that you cannot copy just the git binary. You need a portable version of git and even with that you're going to have a bad time because you cannot guarantee that the os the lambda function runs on is going to be compatible with the binary.

Stepping back, I would just walk away from this approach completely. I would clone and build a package that I would just download pretty much the same way you do downloadDeploymentKeyFromS3Sync.

Answer 2

Yep, this is definitely possible, I've created a Lambda Layer that achieves just this. No need to mess with any env variables, should work out of the box:

https://github.com/lambci/git-lambda-layer

As stated in the README, all you need to do is add a layer with the following ARN:

arn:aws:lambda:<region>:553035198032:layer:git:<version>

(replace <region> and <version>, check README for latest version)

Answer 3

You might consider this a non-answer, but I've found the easiest way to run arbitrary binaries from Lambda is... not to. If I cannot do the work from within a platform-independent, non-binary approach, I integrate Docker into the workflow, managing Docker containers from the Lambda function.

On AWS one way to do this is to use the Elastic Container Service (ECS) to spawn a task that runs git.

If you stand up a Docker Swarm instance or integrate another Docker-API compatible service such as Rackspace Carina or Joyent's Triton, then you could use a project I personally put together specifically for integrating AWS Lambda with Docker: "Dockaless".

Good luck!