Local AWS Cloud With LocalStack

In this article, I will be discussing localstack, which I got to know and learn while working on an open source project and the task was meant to add an example usage of S3 using localstack.

What is LocalStack?

A fully functional local AWS cloud stack which provides an easy-to-use test/mocking framework for developing Cloud applications. It's an open-source mock of the real AWS services, it produces a testing environment on our local machine that emulates the AWS cloud environment with the same APIs as the real AWS services.

LocalStack has three different tier:

• Community Edition
• Pro
• Enterprise

Each tier has its services and features. Pro and Enterprise require payment, while Community Edition is free for personal usage.

Why Use LocalStack?

The procedure of briefly using a test/mock system in place of actual ones is a common way of running tests for applications with external dependencies. In other words LocalStack executes a test system of our AWS services and its primary objective is to assist in speeding up various procedures, saving money on development testing.

Problems LocalStack Solves

• Cost effective testing
• Available as Docker image
• Local/offline testing
• Continuous integration
• Easy to use
• Increases dev speed
• Running applications without connecting to AWS.
• Avoid the complexity of AWS configuration and focus on development.

Requirements

LocalStack is a Python designed application and its main aim is overriding the AWS endpoint URL with the URL of LocalStack. Furthermore, LocalStack runs inside a Docker container, but can also run as a Python application.

• python (Python 3.7 up to 3.10 supported)
• pip (Python package manager)
• Docker

For installing run this command

pip install localstack

We can also run LocalStack directly as a Docker image either with Docker run or with Docker-compose. Before you start running Localstack, ensure that Docker service is up and running. I would highly recommend you Checkout LocalStack repository

Start Localstack in Docker with this command

localstack start -d

Check Service status

localstack status services

Setting up Localstack

To start running localstack in the project, you should have Docker and Docker-compose installed or make use of Docker Desktop to create containers locally.

Create a Docker-compose YAML file at the root of the project

version: '3.8'

services:
  localstack:
    container_name: '${LOCALSTACK_DOCKER_NAME-localstack_main}'
    image: localstack/localstack
    network_mode: bridge
    ports:
      - '127.0.0.1:4510-4559:4510-4559' # external service port range
      - '127.0.0.1:4566:4566' # LocalStack Edge Proxy
    environment:
      - AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=eu-west-1
      - DEBUG=1
      - DATA_DIR=/tmp/localstack/data
      - SERVICES=s3
    volumes:
      - '/private/tmp/localstack:/tmp/localstack'
      - '/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock'

In this docker-compose.yml, we set the environment variable SERVICES to the name of the services we want to use (S3).

Run the below command to get docker-compose.yml file up and running.

docker-compose up -d

Add an example usage of S3

AWS S3 is a program that’s built to store, protect, and retrieve data from “buckets” at any time from anywhere on any device.

Let’s start by creating a directory at the root of the project and installing the NPM package.

mkdir localstack-s3
cd localstack-s3
npm init
npm install --save aws-sdk

The code below provides a summary of the upload.js file. You can checkout the code nx-serverless

const AWS = require("aws-sdk");
const fs = require('fs')

const KEY_ID = "nxserverless"
const SECRET_KEY = "nxserverless"

const BUCKET_NAME = "nxboy";

const s3 = new AWS.S3({
  region: "us-east-1",
  accessKeyId: KEY_ID,
  secretAccessKey: SECRET_KEY,
  endpoint: 'http://localhost:4566', // This is the localstack EDGE_PORT
  s3ForcePathStyle: true,
});

const params = {
  Bucket: BUCKET_NAME
}

// To create an s3 bucket 
s3.createBucket(params,(err, data)=>{
  if(err){
    console.log(err)
  }
  else{
    console.log("Bucket created successfully", data.Location);
  }
})

// To upload a file to s3 bucket 
const uploadFile = (filename) => {
  const filecontent = fs.readFileSync(filename);

  const params = {
    Bucket: BUCKET_NAME,
    Key: "",
    Body: filecontent,
    ContentType: ""
  }

  s3.upload(params,(err, data)=>{
    if(err){
      console.log(err)
    }
    else{
      console.log("File uploaded successfully", data.Location)
    }
  })
}

uploadFile("")

Run the below command to create an s3 bucket

node upload.js

Run the below command to list s3 bucket created

aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 s3 ls

Conclusion

LocalStack provides an environment to test and develop your application and infrastructure with AWS services locally.