HTTP applications

It is possible to run HTTP APIs and websites on AWS Lambda.

To do that, Bref runs your code on AWS Lambda using PHP-FPM. That means HTTP applications can run on AWS Lambda just like on any other PHP hosting platform.

If you are interested in the details, know that AWS Lambda can react to HTTP requests via API Gateway.

Every code we deploy on AWS Lambda is called a "Function". Do not let this name confuse you: we do deploy HTTP applications in a Lambda Function.

In the Lambda world, an HTTP application is a function that is called by a request and returns a response. Good news: this is exactly what our PHP applications do.

Below is a minimal serverless.yml to deploy HTTP applications. To create it automatically run vendor/bin/bref init.

service: app
provider:
    name: aws
    runtime: provided
plugins:
    - ./vendor/bref/bref
functions:
    website:
        handler: index.php
        layers:
            - ${bref:layer.php-73-fpm}
        # This section contains the URL routing configuration of API Gateway
        events:
            -   http: 'ANY /'
            -   http: 'ANY /{proxy+}'

Handler

The handler is the file that will be invoked when an HTTP request comes in.

It is the same file that is traditionally configured in Apache or Nginx. In Symfony and Laravel this is usually public/index.php but it can be anything.

functions:
    website:
        handler: public/index.php

Runtime

The runtime (aka layer) is different than with PHP functions. Instead of php-73 it should be php-73-fpm because we are using PHP-FPM.

functions:
    website:
        layers:
            - ${bref:layer.php-73-fpm}

To learn more check out the runtimes documentation.

The /dev/ prefix

API Gateway works with "stages": a stage is an environment (e.g. dev, test, prod).

This is why applications are deployed with URLs ending with the stage name, for example https://hc4rcprbe2.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/dev/. See this StackOverflow question for more information.

If you setup a custom domain for your application this prefix will disappear. If you don't, you need to take this prefix into account in your application routes in your PHP framework.

If you haven't set up a custom domain yet and you want to get rid of the /dev prefix, you can try the bref.dev service. Run the vendor/bin/bref bref.dev command. Remember that this service is currently in beta and can change in the future.

Routing

On AWS Lambda there is no Apache or Nginx. API Gateway acts as the webserver.

To configure HTTP routing we must configure API Gateway using serverless.yml.

Catch-all

The simplest configuration is to catch all incoming requests and send them to PHP. With API Gateway we must define 2 patterns:

  • the / root URL
  • the /* catch-all URL (which does not catch /)

Here is an example of such configuration:

        events:
            -   http: 'ANY /'
            -   http: 'ANY /{proxy+}'

Advanced routing

API Gateway provides a routing system that lets us define routes that match specific URLs and HTTP methods. For example:

        events:
            -   http: 'POST /articles'
            -   http: 'GET /articles/{id}'

Use {foo} as a placeholder for a parameter and {foo+} as a parameter that matches everything, including sub-folders.

Assets

Lambda and API Gateway are only used for executing code. Serving assets via PHP does not make sense as this would be a waste of resources and money.

Deploying a website and serving assets (e.g. CSS, JavaScript, images) is covered in the "Websites" documentation.

In some cases however, you will need to serve images (or other assets) via PHP. One example would be if you served generated images via PHP. In those cases, you need to read the Binary requests and responses section below.

Binary requests and responses

By default API Gateway does not support binary HTTP requests or responses like images, PDF, binary files… To achieve this, you need to enable the option for binary media types in serverless.yml as well as define the BREF_BINARY_RESPONSES environment variable:

provider:
    # ...
    apiGateway:
        binaryMediaTypes:
            - '*/*'
    environment:
        BREF_BINARY_RESPONSES: 1

This will make API Gateway support binary file uploads and downloads, and Bref will automatically encode responses to base64 (which is what API Gateway now expects).

Context access

Request context

Some AWS integrations with API Gateway will add information to the HTTP request via the request context.

This is the case, for example, when adding AWS Cognito authentication on API Gateway.

The request context is usually available under the 'requestContext' key in the Lambda event array. However, with the HTTP runtime running PHP-FPM, we cannot access the Lambda event. To work around that, Bref puts the request context in the $_SERVER['LAMBDA_REQUEST_CONTEXT'] variable as a JSON-encoded string.

Here is an example to retrieve it:

$requestContext = json_decode($_SERVER['LAMBDA_REQUEST_CONTEXT'], true);

Note: In previous releases this context was made available via LAMBDA_CONTEXT. However, for clarity this environment variable has been deprecated in favour of LAMBDA_REQUEST_CONTEXT. It is advised to update existing usage to the new naming convention.

Lambda context

Lambda provides information about the invocation, function, and execution environment via the lambda context.

This context is usually available as a parameter (alongside the event), within the defined handler. However, with the HTTP runtime running PHP-FPM, we do not have direct access to this parameter. To work around that, Bref puts the Lambda context in the $_SERVER['LAMBDA_INVOCATION_CONTEXT'] variable as a JSON-encoded string.

Here is an example to retrieve it:

$lambdaContext = json_decode($_SERVER['LAMBDA_INVOCATION_CONTEXT'], true);

Cold starts

AWS Lambda automatically destroys Lambda containers that have been unused for 10 to 60 minutes. Warming up a new container can take some time, especially if your package is large or if your Lambda is connected to a VPC. This delay is called cold start.

To mitigate cold starts for HTTP applications, you can periodically send an event to your Lambda including a {warmer: true} key. Bref recognizes this event and immediately responds with a {status: 100} without executing your code.

You can generate automatically such events using AWS CloudWatch (read this article for more details). For example :

        events:
            -   http: 'ANY /'
            -   http: 'ANY /{proxy+}'
            - schedule:
                rate: rate(5 minutes)
                input:
                    warmer: true
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