You can configure your Lambda function to stream response payloads back to clients. Response streaming can benefit latency sensitive applications by improving time to first byte (TTFB) performance. This is because you can send partial responses back to the client as they become available. Additionally, you can use response streaming to build functions that return larger payloads. Response stream payloads have a soft limit of 20 MB as compared to the 6 MB limit for buffered responses. Streaming a response also means that your function doesn’t need to fit the entire response in memory. For very large responses, this can reduce the amount of memory you need to configure for your function.
Streaming responses incurs a cost. For more information, see AWS Lambda Pricing.
You can stream responses through Lambda function URLs, the AWS SDK, or using the Lambda InvokeWithResponseStream API. In this example, we create an authenticated Lambda function URL.
The sample code creates a SendNumbersWithPause
struct that conforms to the StreamingLambdaHandler
protocol provided by the Swift AWS Lambda Runtime.
The handle(...)
method of this protocol receives incoming events as a Swift NIO ByteBuffer
and returns the output as a ByteBuffer
.
The response is streamed through the LambdaResponseStreamWriter
, which is passed as an argument in the handle
function. The code calls the write(_:)
function of the LambdaResponseStreamWriter
with partial data repeatedly written before
finally closing the response stream by calling finish()
. Developers can also choose to return the entire output and not
stream the response by calling writeAndFinish(_:)
.
An error is thrown if finish()
is called multiple times or if it is called after having called writeAndFinish(_:)
.
The handle(...)
method is marked as mutating
to allow handlers to be implemented with a struct
.
Once the struct is created and the handle(...)
method is defined, the sample code creates a LambdaRuntime
struct and initializes it with the handler just created. Then, the code calls run()
to start the interaction with the AWS Lambda control plane.
To build & archive the package, type the following commands.
swift package archive --allow-network-connections docker
If there is no error, there is a ZIP file ready to deploy.
The ZIP file is located at .build/plugins/AWSLambdaPackager/outputs/AWSLambdaPackager/StreamingNumbers/StreamingNumbers.zip
Here is how to deploy using the aws
command line.
# Replace with your AWS Account ID
AWS_ACCOUNT_ID=012345678901
aws lambda create-function \
--function-name StreamingNumbers \
--zip-file fileb://.build/plugins/AWSLambdaPackager/outputs/AWSLambdaPackager/StreamingNumbers/StreamingNumbers.zip \
--runtime provided.al2 \
--handler provided \
--architectures arm64 \
--role arn:aws:iam::${AWS_ACCOUNT_ID}:role/lambda_basic_execution \
--timeout 15
Important
The timeout value must be bigger than the time it takes for your function to stream its output. Otherwise, the Lambda control plane will terminate the execution environment before your code has a chance to finish writing the stream. Here, the sample function stream responses during 10 seconds and we set the timeout for 15 seconds.
The --architectures
flag is only required when you build the binary on an Apple Silicon machine (Apple M1 or more recent). It defaults to x64
.
Be sure to set AWS_ACCOUNT_ID
with your actual AWS account ID (for example: 012345678901).
Anyone with a valid signature from your AWS account will have permission to invoke the function through its URL.
aws lambda add-permission \
--function-name StreamingNumbers \
--action lambda:InvokeFunctionUrl \
--principal ${AWS_ACCOUNT_ID} \
--function-url-auth-type AWS_IAM \
--statement-id allowURL
This creates a URL with IAM authentication. Only calls with a valid signature will be authorized.
aws lambda create-function-url-config \
--function-name StreamingNumbers \
--auth-type AWS_IAM \
--invoke-mode RESPONSE_STREAM
This calls return various information, including the URL to invoke your function.
{
"FunctionUrl": "https://ul3nf4dogmgyr7ffl5r5rs22640fwocc.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/",
"FunctionArn": "arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:012345678901:function:StreamingNumbers",
"AuthType": "AWS_IAM",
"CreationTime": "2024-10-22T07:57:23.112599Z",
"InvokeMode": "RESPONSE_STREAM"
}
To invoke the Lambda function, use curl
with the AWS Sigv4 option to generate the signature.
Read the AWS Credentials and Signature section for more details about the AWS Sigv4 protocol and how to obtain AWS credentials.
When you have the aws
command line installed and configured, you will find the credentials in the ~/.aws/credentials
file.
URL=https://ul3nf4dogmgyr7ffl5r5rs22640fwocc.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/
REGION=us-east-1
ACCESS_KEY=AK...
SECRET_KEY=...
AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=...
curl "$URL" \
--user "${ACCESS_KEY}":"${SECRET_KEY}" \
--aws-sigv4 "aws:amz:${REGION}:lambda" \
-H "x-amz-security-token: ${AWS_SESSION_TOKEN}" \
--no-buffer
Note that there is no payload required for this example.
This should output the following result, with a one-second delay between each numbers.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
When done testing, you can delete the Lambda function with this command.
aws lambda delete-function --function-name StreamingNumbers
Alternatively, you can use AWS SAM to deploy the Lambda function.
Prerequisites : Install the SAM CLI
The template file is provided as part of the example in the template.yaml
file. It defines a Lambda function based on the binary ZIP file. It creates the function url with IAM authentication and sets the function timeout to 15 seconds.
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
Description: SAM Template for StreamingLambda Example
Resources:
# Lambda function
StreamingNumbers:
Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
Properties:
CodeUri: .build/plugins/AWSLambdaPackager/outputs/AWSLambdaPackager/StreamingNumbers/StreamingNumbers.zip
Timeout: 15
Handler: swift.bootstrap # ignored by the Swift runtime
Runtime: provided.al2
MemorySize: 128
Architectures:
- arm64
FunctionUrlConfig:
AuthType: AWS_IAM
InvokeMode: RESPONSE_STREAM
Outputs:
# print Lambda function URL
LambdaURL:
Description: Lambda URL
Value: !GetAtt StreamingNumbersUrl.FunctionUrl
sam deploy \
--resolve-s3 \
--template-file template.yaml \
--stack-name StreamingNumbers \
--capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM
The URL of the function is provided as part of the output.
CloudFormation outputs from deployed stack
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outputs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key LambdaURL
Description Lambda URL
Value https://gaudpin2zjqizfujfnqxstnv6u0czrfu.lambda-url.us-east-1.on.aws/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once the function is deployed, you can invoke it with curl
, similarly to what you did when deploying with the AWS CLI.
curl "$URL" \
--user "$ACCESS_KEY":"$SECRET_KEY" \
--aws-sigv4 "aws:amz:${REGION}:lambda" \
-H "x-amz-security-token: $AWS_SESSION_TOKEN" \
--no-buffer
When done testing, you can delete the infrastructure with this command.
sam delete