Deploy your ASP.NET Core Web API to AWS Lambda

By Carlos Mendible | Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Create a folder for your new project

Open a command promt an run

mkdir aws.lambda

Create the project

cd aws.lambda
dotnet new webapi

Replace the contents of aws.lambda.csproj

You need to target netcoreapp1.0 in order for your Web API to work on AWS Lambda. You’ll also need to reference some nuget packages from aws so replace the contents of the aws.lamda.csproj file with the following lines:

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

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp1.0</TargetFramework>
    <UserSecretsId>aspnet-aws.lambda-FD62E418-7AF9-462F-B391-DD806F38F03A</UserSecretsId>
    <PreserveCompilationContext>false</PreserveCompilationContext>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\" />
  </ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel" Version="1.0.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc" Version="1.0.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Routing" Version="1.0.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.EnvironmentVariables" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.FileExtensions" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Logging" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions" Version="1.0.0" />

    <PackageReference Include="AWSSDK.Extensions.NETCore.Setup" Version="3.3.0.3" />

    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Core" Version="1.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Serialization.Json" Version="1.1.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.AspNetCoreServer" Version="0.10.1-preview1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Logging.AspNetCore" Version="1.1.0" />
  </ItemGroup>
  
  <ItemGroup>
    <DotNetCliToolReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Tools" Version="1.0" />
    <DotNetCliToolReference Include="Amazon.Lambda.Tools" Version="1.6.0" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Restore the packages

You just changed the project files so restore the packages:

dotnet restore

Rename Program.cs and replace it’s contents

Rename Program.cs to LocalEntrypoint.cs and replace the contents of the file with the following lines:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;

namespace aws.lambda
{
    /// <summary>
    /// The Main function can be used to run the ASP.NET Core application locally using the Kestrel webserver.
    /// </summary>
    public class LocalEntryPoint
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var host = new WebHostBuilder()
                .UseKestrel()
                .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
                .UseIISIntegration()
                .UseStartup<Startup>()
                .Build();

            host.Run();
        }
    }
}

Note: This will be the entry point while you are developing.

Create a file LambdaFunction.cs

Create a LambdaFunction.cs file and copy the following code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using System.IO;

namespace aws.lambda
{
    public class LambdaFunction : Amazon.Lambda.AspNetCoreServer.APIGatewayProxyFunction
    {
        protected override void Init(IWebHostBuilder builder)
        {
            builder
                .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
                .UseStartup<Startup>()
                .UseApiGateway();
        }
    }
}

Note: This class will be the entry point once you deploy the Web API to AWS Lambda.

Replace the contents of Startup.cs

Replace the contents of the Startup.cs file with the following code

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

namespace aws.lambda
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
        {
            var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
                .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
                .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: false, reloadOnChange: true)
                .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true);

            builder.AddEnvironmentVariables();
            Configuration = builder.Build();
        }

        public static IConfigurationRoot Configuration { get; private set; }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.AddMvc();

            // Pull in any SDK configuration from Configuration object
            services.AddDefaultAWSOptions(Configuration.GetAWSOptions());
        }

        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
        {
            loggerFactory.AddLambdaLogger(Configuration.GetLambdaLoggerOptions());
            app.UseMvc();
        }
    }
}

Note: Check lines 34 & 40 for special AWS configurations.

Create aws-lambda-tools-defaults.json

Create a aws-lambda-tools-defaults.json file with the following code

{
    "Information": [
        "This file provides default values for the deployment wizard inside Visual Studio and the AWS Lambda commands added to the .NET Core CLI.",
        "To learn more about the Lambda commands with the .NET Core CLI execute the following command at the command line in the project root directory.",
        "dotnet lambda help",
        "All the command line options for the Lambda command can be specified in this file."
    ],
    "profile": "default",
    "region": "eu-west-1",
    "configuration": "Release",
    "framework": "netcoreapp1.0",
    "function-runtime": "dotnetcore1.0",
    "template": "serverless.template"
}

Note: Be aware of teh region specified in this file.

Create serverless.template

Create a file: serverless.template with the following contents

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",
  "Transform" : "AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31",
  "Description" : "Starting template for an AWS Serverless Application.",
  "Parameters" : {
  },
  "Resources" : {
    "DefaultFunction" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::Serverless::Function",
      "Properties": {
        "Handler": "aws.lambda::aws.lambda.LambdaFunction::FunctionHandlerAsync",
        "Runtime": "dotnetcore1.0",
        "CodeUri": "",
        "Description": "Default function",
        "MemorySize": 256,
        "Timeout": 30,
        "Role": null,
        "Policies": [ "AWSLambdaFullAccess" ],
        "Events": {
          "PutResource": {
            "Type": "Api",
            "Properties": {
              "Path": "/{proxy+}",
              "Method": "ANY"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "Outputs" : {
  }
}

Note: be aware of the Handler property in this file. It should be in the form:
[Assembly Name]::[Namespace].LambdaFunction::FunctionHandlerAsync

Build the application

Build the application:

dotnet build

11. Deploy to AWS Lambda

Run the following commands (you’ll need your access key for AWS):

aws configure
aws s3api create-bucket --bucket mylambdabucket --region eu-west-1 --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=eu-west-1 
dotnet lambda deploy-serverless

Get your api id

Run the following commands and copy the api id for your stack:

aws apigateway get-rest-apis

Browse to your web api

You are good to go so browse to:
https://[api id from step 11].execute-api.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Prod/api/values

The browser should show: [“value1″,“value2”]

You can get the code here: https://github.com/cmendible/dotnetcore.samples/tree/main/aws.lambda

Hope it helps!

Last modified December 12, 2024: new post (bf52b37)