Showing posts with label aurora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aurora. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 February 2019

Querying Aurora serverless database remotely using Lambda - part 3

This post is part of a series

In the previous part, we've set up the Aurora MySql cluster. At this point we can start creating the client code to allow querying.

The Lambda code

In this example I'll be using .NET Core 2.1 as Lambda runtime and C# as programming language. The code is very simple and should be easy to port to your favourite runtime/language.

Lambda Input

The input to my function consists of two main pieces of information: database connection information and the query to execute.

    public class ConnectionInfo
    {
        public string DbUser { get; set; }
        public string DbPassword { get; set; }
        public string DbName { get; set; }
        public string DbHost { get; set; }
        public int DbPort { get; set; }
    }

    public class LambdaInput
    {
        public ConnectionInfo Connection { get; set; }

        public string QueryText { get; set; }
    }

Lambda Code

The function itself returns a List of dictionary where each item of the list represents a "record" from the query result, these are in a key/value form where key is the "field" name and the value is the what comes form the query.

    public List<Dictionary<string, object>> RunQueryHandler(LambdaInput input, ILambdaContext context)
    {
        var cxnString = GetCxnString(input.Connection);
        var query = input.QueryText;

        var result = new List<Dictionary<string, object>>();
        using (var conn = new MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlConnection(cxnString))
        {
            var cmd = GetCommand(conn, query);
            var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();

            var columns = new List<string>();

            for (int i = 0; i < reader.FieldCount; i++)
            {
                columns.Add(reader.GetName(i));
            }

            while (reader.Read())
            {
                var record = new Dictionary<string, object>();
                foreach (var column in columns)
                {
                    record.Add(column, reader[column]);
                }
                result.Add(record);
            }
        }
        return result;
    }

Support methods

Here is the code of the missing methods: GetCxnString and GetCommand not really complicated.

    private static readonly string cxnStringFormat = "server={0};uid={1};pwd={2};database={3};Connection Timeout=60";

    private string GetCxnString(ConnectionInfo cxn)
    {
        return string.Format(cxnStringFormat, cxn.DbHost, cxn.DbUser, cxn.DbPassword, cxn.DbName);
    }

    private static MySqlCommand GetCommand(MySqlConnection conn, string query)
    {
        conn.Open();
        var cmd = conn.CreateCommand();
        cmd.CommandText = query;
        cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
        return cmd;
    }

Project file

Before compiling and packaging the code we need a project file, assuming you don't have one already, this is how it looks like to be able to run in AWS Lambda environment.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
    <GenerateRuntimeConfigurationFiles>true</GenerateRuntimeConfigurationFiles>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Core" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Serialization.Json" Version="1.3.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="MySql.Data" Version="8.0.13" />
    <PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="11.0.2" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <DotNetCliToolReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Tools" Version="2.2.0" />
  </ItemGroup>


Preparing Lambda package

Assuming you have both the code and csproj file in the current directory, we just run dotnet lambda package command as per below, where -c sets the Configuration to release, -f sets the target framework to netcoreapp2.1 and -o sets the output zip file name.

$ dotnet lambda package -c release -f netcoreapp2.1 -o aurora-lambda.zip
Amazon Lambda Tools for .NET Core applications (2.2.0)
Project Home: https://github.com/aws/aws-extensions-for-dotnet-cli, https://github.com/aws/aws-lambda-dotnet

Executing publish command
Deleted previous publish folder
... invoking 'dotnet publish', working folder '/home/abel/Downloads/aurora_cluster_sample/bin/release/netcoreapp2.1/publish'

( ... ) --- removed code for brevity ---

... zipping:   adding: aurora.lambda.deps.json (deflated 76%)
Created publish archive (/home/abel/Downloads/aurora_cluster_sample/aurora-lambda.zip).
Lambda project successfully packaged: /home/abel/Downloads/aurora_cluster_sample/aurora-lambda.zip

Next, we upload the resulting zip file to an S3 bucket of our choice. In this example I'm using a bucket named abelperez-temp and I'm uploading the zip file to a folder named aurora-lambda so I keep some form of organisation in my file directory.

$ aws s3 cp aurora-lambda.zip s3://abelperez-temp/aurora-lambda/
upload: ./aurora-lambda.zip to s3://abelperez-temp/aurora-lambda/aurora-lambda.zip

Lambda stack

To create the Lambda function, I've put together a CloudFormation template that includes:

  • AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup contains outbound traffic rule to allow port 3306
  • AWS::IAM::Role contains an IAM role to allow the Lambda function to write to CloudWatch Logs and interact with ENIs
  • AWS::Lambda::Function contains the function definition

Here is the full template, the required parameters are VpcId, SubnetIds and LambdaS3Bucket which we should get from previous stacks' outputs. The template outputs the function full name, which we'll need to be able to invoke it later.

Special attention to the Lambda function definition, the property Handler, in .NET runtime is in the form of AssemblyName::Namespace.ClassName::MethodName and the property Code containing the S3 location of the zip file we uploaded earlier.

Description: Template to create a lambda function 

Parameters: 
  LambdaS3Bucket:
    Type: String
  DbClusterPort: 
    Type: Number
    Default: 3306
  VpcId: 
    Type: String
  SubnetIds: 
    Type: CommaDelimitedList

Resources:
  LambdaSg:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup
    Properties:
      GroupDescription: Allow outbound traffic to MySQL host
      VpcId:
        Ref: VpcId
      SecurityGroupEgress:
        - IpProtocol: tcp
          FromPort: !Ref DbClusterPort
          ToPort: !Ref DbClusterPort
          CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0

  AWSLambdaExecutionRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
        Version: 2012-10-17
        Statement:
          - Effect: Allow
            Principal:
              Service:
                - lambda.amazonaws.com
            Action: sts:AssumeRole
      Path: /
      Policies:
        - PolicyName: PermitLambda
          PolicyDocument:
            Version: 2012-10-17
            Statement:
            - Effect: Allow
              Action:
              - logs:CreateLogGroup
              - logs:CreateLogStream
              - logs:PutLogEvents
              - ec2:CreateNetworkInterface
              - ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces
              - ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface
              Resource: 
                - "arn:aws:logs:*:*:*"
                - "*"
  HelloLambda:
    Type: AWS::Lambda::Function
    Properties:
      Handler: aurora.lambda::project.lambda.Function::RunQueryHandler
      Role: !GetAtt AWSLambdaExecutionRole.Arn
      Code:
        S3Bucket: !Ref LambdaS3Bucket
        S3Key: aurora-lambda/aurora-lambda.zip
      Runtime: dotnetcore2.1
      Timeout: 30
      VpcConfig:
        SecurityGroupIds:
          - !Ref LambdaSg
        SubnetIds: !Ref SubnetIds

Outputs:
  LambdaFunction:
    Value: !Ref HelloLambda

To deploy this stack we use the following command where we pass the parameters specific to our VPC (VpcId and SubnetIds) as well as the S3 bucket name.

$ aws cloudformation deploy --stack-name fn-stack \
--template-file aurora_lambda_template.yml \
--parameter-overrides VpcId=vpc-0b442e5d98841996c SubnetIds=subnet-013d0bbb3eca284a2,subnet-00c67cfed3ab0a791 LambdaS3Bucket=abelperez-temp \
--capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM

Waiting for changeset to be created..
Waiting for stack create/update to complete
Successfully created/updated stack - fn-stack

Let's get the outputs as we'll need this information later. We have the Lambda function full name.

$ aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name fn-stack --query Stacks[*].Outputs
[
    [
        {
            "OutputKey": "LambdaFunction",
            "OutputValue": "fn-stack-HelloLambda-C32KDMYICP5W"
        }
    ]
]

Invoking Lambda function

Now that we have deployed the function and we know its full name, we can invoke it by using dotnet lambda invoke-function command. Part of this job is to prepare the payload which is a JSON in put corresponding to the Lambda input defined above.

{
    "Connection": {
        "DbUser": "master", 
        "DbPassword": "Aurora.2019", 
        "DbName": "dbtest", 
        "DbHost": "db-stack-auroramysqlcluster-xxx.rds.amazonaws.com", 
        "DbPort": 3306
    }, 
    "QueryText":"show databases;"
}

Here is the command to invoke the Lambda function, including the payload parameter encoded to escape the quotes and all in a single line. There are better ways to do this, but for the sake of this demonstration, it's good enough.

$ dotnet lambda invoke-function \
--function-name fn-stack-HelloLambda-C32KDMYICP5W \
--payload "{ \"Connection\": {\"DbUser\": \"master\", \"DbPassword\": \"Aurora.2019\", \"DbName\": \"dbtest\", \"DbHost\": \"db-stack-auroramysqlcluster-xxx.rds.amazonaws.com\", \"DbPort\": 3306}, \"QueryText\":\"show databases;\" }" \
--region eu-west-1

Amazon Lambda Tools for .NET Core applications (2.2.0)
Project Home: https://github.com/aws/aws-extensions-for-dotnet-cli, https://github.com/aws/aws-lambda-dotnet

Payload:
[{"Database":"information_schema"},{"Database":"dbtest"},{"Database":"mysql"},{"Database":"performance_schema"}]

Log Tail:
START RequestId: 595944b5-73bb-4536-be92-a42652125ba8 Version: $LATEST
END RequestId: 595944b5-73bb-4536-be92-a42652125ba8
REPORT RequestId: 595944b5-73bb-4536-be92-a42652125ba8  Duration: 11188.62 ms   Billed Duration: 11200 ms       Memory Size: 128 MB     Max Memory Used: 37 MB

Now we can see the output in the Payload section. And that's how we can query remotely any Aurora serverless cluster without having to set up any EC2 instance. This could be extended to handle different SQL operations such as Create, Insert, Delete, etc.

Monday, 4 February 2019

Querying Aurora serverless database remotely using Lambda - part 2

This post is part of a series

In the previous part, we've set up the base layer to deploy our resources. At this point we can create the database cluster.

Aurora DB Cluster

Assuming we have our VPC ready with at least two subnets to comply with high availability best practices, let's create our cluster, I've put together a CloudFormation template that includes:

  • AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup contains inbound traffic rule to allow port 3306
  • AWS::RDS::DBSubnetGroup contains a group of subnets to deploy the cluster
  • AWS::EC2::DBCluster contains all the parameters to create the database cluster

Here is the full template, the only required parameters are VpcId and SubnetIds, but feel free to override any of the database cluster parameters such as database name, user name, password, etc. The template outputs the IDs corresponding to newly created resources such as the database cluster DNS endpoint, port and the security group.

Description: Template to create a serverless aurora mysql cluster

Parameters: 
  DbClusterDatabaseName: 
    Type: String
    Default: dbtest
  DbClusterIdentifier: 
    Type: String
    Default: serverless-mysql-aurora
  DbClusterParameterGroup: 
    Type: String
    Default: default.aurora5.6
  DbClusterMasterUsername: 
    Type: String
    Default: master
  DbClusterMasterPassword: 
    Type: String
    Default: Aurora.2019
  DbClusterPort: 
    Type: Number
    Default: 3306
  VpcId: 
    Type: String
  SubnetIds: 
    Type: CommaDelimitedList

Resources:
  DbClusterSg:
    Type: AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup
    Properties:
      GroupDescription: Allow MySQL port to client host
      VpcId:
        Ref: VpcId
      SecurityGroupIngress:
        - IpProtocol: tcp
          FromPort: !Ref DbClusterPort
          ToPort: !Ref DbClusterPort
          CidrIp: 0.0.0.0/0

  DbSubnetGroup: 
    Type: "AWS::RDS::DBSubnetGroup"
    Properties: 
      DBSubnetGroupDescription: "aurora subnets"
      SubnetIds: !Ref SubnetIds

  AuroraMysqlCluster:
    Type: AWS::RDS::DBCluster
    Properties:
      DatabaseName:
        Ref: DbClusterDatabaseName
      DBClusterParameterGroupName:
        Ref: DbClusterParameterGroup
      DBSubnetGroupName:
        Ref: DbSubnetGroup
      Engine: aurora
      EngineMode: serverless
      MasterUsername:
        Ref: DbClusterMasterUsername
      MasterUserPassword:
        Ref: DbClusterMasterPassword
      ScalingConfiguration:
        AutoPause: true
        MinCapacity: 2
        MaxCapacity: 4
        SecondsUntilAutoPause: 1800
      VpcSecurityGroupIds:
        - !Ref DbClusterSg
        
Outputs:
  DbClusterEndpointAddress:
    Value: !GetAtt AuroraMysqlCluster.Endpoint.Address
  DbClusterEndpointPort:
    Value: !GetAtt AuroraMysqlCluster.Endpoint.Port
  DbClusterSgId:
    Value: !Ref DbClusterSg

To deploy this stack we use the following command where we pass the parameters specific to our VPC (VpcId and SubnetIds).

$ aws cloudformation deploy --stack-name db-stack \
--template-file aurora_cluster_template.yml \
--parameter-overrides VpcId=vpc-0b442e5d98841996c SubnetIds=subnet-013d0bbb3eca284a2,subnet-00c67cfed3ab0a791

Waiting for changeset to be created..
Waiting for stack create/update to complete
Successfully created/updated stack - db-stack

Let's get the outputs as we'll need this information later. We have the cluster endpoint DNS name and the port as per our definition.

$ aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name db-stack --query Stacks[*].Outputs
[
    [
        {
            "OutputKey": "DbClusterEndpointAddress",
            "OutputValue": "db-stack-auroramysqlcluster-1d1udg4ringe4.cluster-cnfxlauucwwi.eu-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com"
        },
        {
            "OutputKey": "DbClusterSgId",
            "OutputValue": "sg-072bbf2078caa0f46"
        },
        {
            "OutputKey": "DbClusterEndpointPort",
            "OutputValue": "3306"
        }
    ]
]

In the next part, we'll create the Lambda function to query this database remotely.

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Querying Aurora serverless database remotely using Lambda - part 1

This post is part of a series

Why aurora serverless?

For those who like experimenting with new technology, AWS feeds us with a lot of new stuff every year at re:Invent conference, and many more times. In August 2018, Amazon announced its general availability. I was intrigued by this totally new way to doing database, so I started to play with it.

The first road block I found was connectivity from my local environment. I wanted to connect to my new cluster using my traditional MySQL Workbench client. It turned out to be one of the limitations clearly explained by Amazon, and as of today:

You can't give an Aurora Serverless DB cluster a public IP address. You can access an Aurora Serverless DB cluster only from within a virtual private cloud (VPC) based on the Amazon VPC service.

Most common workarounds involve the use of an EC2 instance to either run a MySQL client from there or SSH tunnel and allow connections from outside of the VPC. In both cases we'll be charged for the use of the EC2 instace. At the moment of this writing there is a solution for that, but still in beta: Data API.

With all that said, I decided to explore my own way in the meantime by creating a serverless approach involving Lambda to query my database.

Setting up the base - VPC

First, we need a VPC. For testing only, it doesn't really matter if we just use the default VPC in the current region. But if you'd like to get started with a blue print, there is this public CloudFormation template, it contains a sample VPC with two public subnets and two private subnets as well as all the required resources to guarantee connectivity (IGW, NAT, Route tables, etc.).

I prefer to isolate my experiments from the rest of the resources, that's why I came up with a template containing the bare minimum to get a VPC up and running. It only includes:

  • AWS::EC2::VPC the VPC itself - default CIDR block 10.192.0.0/16
  • AWS::EC2::Subnet private subnet 1 - default CIDR block 10.192.20.0/24
  • AWS::EC2::Subnet private subnet 2 - default CIDR block 10.192.21.0/24

Here is the full template, the only required parameter is EnvironmentName, but feel free to override any of the CIDR blocks. The template outputs the IDs corresponding to newly created resources such as the VPC and the subnets.

Description: >-
  This template deploys a VPC, with two private subnets spread across 
  two Availability Zones. This VPC does not provide any internet 
  connectivity resources such as IGW, NAT Gw, etc.

Parameters:
  EnvironmentName:
    Description: >-
      An environment name that will be prefixed to resource names
    Type: String

  VpcCIDR:
    Description: >-
      Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for this VPC
    Type: String
    Default: 10.192.0.0/16

  PrivateSubnet1CIDR:
    Description: >-
      Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for the private subnet 
      in the first Availability Zone
    Type: String
    Default: 10.192.20.0/24

  PrivateSubnet2CIDR:
    Description: >-
      Please enter the IP range (CIDR notation) for the private subnet 
      in the second Availability Zone
    Type: String
    Default: 10.192.21.0/24

Resources:
  VPC:
    Type: AWS::EC2::VPC
    Properties:
      CidrBlock: !Ref VpcCIDR
      EnableDnsSupport: true
      EnableDnsHostnames: true
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Ref EnvironmentName

  PrivateSubnet1:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [ 0, !GetAZs '' ]
      CidrBlock: !Ref PrivateSubnet1CIDR
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: false
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${EnvironmentName} Private Subnet (AZ1)

  PrivateSubnet2:
    Type: AWS::EC2::Subnet
    Properties:
      VpcId: !Ref VPC
      AvailabilityZone: !Select [ 1, !GetAZs '' ]
      CidrBlock: !Ref PrivateSubnet2CIDR
      MapPublicIpOnLaunch: false
      Tags:
        - Key: Name
          Value: !Sub ${EnvironmentName} Private Subnet (AZ2)

Outputs:
  VPC:
    Description: A reference to the created VPC
    Value: !Ref VPC

  PrivateSubnet1:
    Description: A reference to the private subnet in the 1st Availability Zone
    Value: !Ref PrivateSubnet1

  PrivateSubnet2:
    Description: A reference to the private subnet in the 2nd Availability Zone
    Value: !Ref PrivateSubnet2

To create a stack from this template we run the following command (or go to AWS console and upload the template)

$ aws cloudformation deploy --stack-name vpc-stack \
--template-file vpc_template.yml \
--parameter-overrides EnvironmentName=Dev

Waiting for changeset to be created..
Waiting for stack create/update to complete
Successfully created/updated stack - vpc-stack

After successful stack creation, we can get the outputs as we'll need them for the next step.

$ aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name vpc-stack --query Stacks[*].Outputs
[
    [
        {
            "Description": "A reference to the private subnet in the 1st Availability Zone",
            "OutputKey": "PrivateSubnet1",
            "OutputValue": "subnet-013d0bbb3eca284a2"
        },
        {
            "Description": "A reference to the private subnet in the 2nd Availability Zone",
            "OutputKey": "PrivateSubnet2",
            "OutputValue": "subnet-00c67cfed3ab0a791"
        },
        {
            "Description": "A reference to the created VPC",
            "OutputKey": "VPC",
            "OutputValue": "vpc-0b442e5d98841996c"
        }
    ]
]

In the next part, we'll create the Database cluster using these resources as a base layer.