Getting node-canvas to run on AWS Lambda
Last week, while I was creating a service for parsing metadata from TikTok videos, I encountered a few issues getting the node-canvas library to work on AWS Lambda.
In the spirit of blogumentation, I wanted to document this for anyone else who may see this.
Missing shared libraries
The first issue I faced was an error similar to the below:
{
"errorType": "Error",
"errorMessage": "libuuid.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory",
"code": "ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED",
"stack": [
"Error: libuuid.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory",
"..."
]
}
This is because node-canvas relies on a number of native libraries, which don't exist on the stripped-down AWS Lambda runtime.
I found Charoite Lee's Lambda layer as an effective way of solving this, and a straightforward way to configure it in our Lambdas.
Use x86 architecture
One of the cost improvements I use for my Lambdas is using ARM architecture, due to price and efficiency benefits.
The next issue I fought getting node-canvas working was that ARM architecture is not supported out-of-the-box.
Unfortunately this fails with an error similar to:
{
"errorType": "Error",
"errorMessage": "/var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory",
"code": "ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED",
"stack": [
"Error: /var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory",
"..."
]
}
The solution here is to use the x86 architecture, until ARM prebuilds are available, or build the ARM version yourself.
Configuring LD_PRELOAD
Next, I encountered an issue where the version of the zlib compression library wasn't being picked up correctly:
{
"errorType": "Error",
"errorMessage": "/lib64/libz.so.1: version `ZLIB_1.2.9' not found (required by /var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/libpng16.so.16)",
"code": "ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED",
"stack": [
"Error: /lib64/libz.so.1: version `ZLIB_1.2.9' not found (required by /var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/libpng16.so.16)",
"..."
]
}
As noted by this GitHub comment, we need to amend LD_PRELOAD to contain our libz.so:
LD_PRELOAD=/var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/libz.so.1
Use Node 14 to build+deploy
The final issue I had was that I was using a newer version of Node to build + deploy to AWS, which then introduced the following error:
{
"errorType": "Error",
"errorMessage": "The module '/var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node'\nwas compiled against a different Node.js version using\nNODE_MODULE_VERSION 102. This version of Node.js requires\nNODE_MODULE_VERSION 83. Please try re-compiling or re-installing\nthe module (for instance, using `npm rebuild` or `npm install`).",
"code": "ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED",
"stack": [
"Error: The module '/var/task/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node'",
"was compiled against a different Node.js version using",
"NODE_MODULE_VERSION 102. This version of Node.js requires",
"NODE_MODULE_VERSION 83. Please try re-compiling or re-installing",
"the module (for instance, using `npm rebuild` or `npm install`).",
"..."
]
}
The solution I needed was to use the same version of Node locally as AWS, which was Node 14.
