Sharp for AWS Lambda (with HEIC support)

AWS Lambda Layer providing sharp with HEIC (and WebP) support

Prerequisites

• Docker
• SAM v1.33.0 or higher
• Node v20 (for v4.x)

Usage

Due to potential license concerns for the HEVC patent group, this repo can't be provided in the most convenient way which would be a shared lambda layer or an Application in the AWS Serverless Repo.

But you can compile and deploy this lambda layer yourself at your own risk and use it wihin your own accounts. All you need is an S3 bucket to deploy the compiled code to (replace your-s3-bucket in the code snippet below). Please see the note below regarding the build process.

It is recommended to automate this process using AWS CodeBuild. A buildspec file is provided in the repo. In that case you'll have to set the SAM_BUCKET environment variable in CodeBuild. For other environment variables see the table below. The base image that should be used is aws/codebuild/amazonlinux2-x86_64-standard:5.0.

A sample CloudFormation template is provided to setup the CodeBuild project, sample-buildproject.yaml.

npm run build
SAM_BUCKET=your-s3-bucket npm run deploy

The example can be deployed using the following commands

cd examples
sam build
sam deploy --guided

Lambda Layer

• Add the lambda layer with ARN arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:${AWS:AccountId}:layer:sharp-heic:${LAYER_VERSION} to any lambda function (replace ${LAYER_VERSION} with the appropriate version and ${AWS:AccountId} if you're not using a layer from the same account as the function). You can also import the layer ARN using !ImportValue SharpHEICLayerArn.
• Remove sharp from the dependencies in the function code (it will otherwise conflict with the one provided through the layer)
• See example template for a complete sample template.

Environment Variables for build

For details on ORGANIZATION_ID and PRINCIPAL please see the equivalent properties in the CloudFormation Docs.

The special value none for ORGANIZATION_ID is used to disable organization based access. The special value account for PRINCIPAL is used to give access to the account the layer is deployed to.

The environment variables are used to create a samconfig.toml file that configures the sam package and sam deploy commands.

Note regarding build process

Previously, some custom docker images were needed to build this layer. AWS has since published newer images which work out of the box. saml-cli version v1.33.0 is using public.ecr.aws/sam/build-nodejs14.x:latest-x86_64

Background

This repo exists as it is rather painful to compile all libraries required to get sharp to work with HEIC/HEIF files in an AWS Lambda environment. The sharp repository has several issues related to this.

Layer contents

This lambda layer contains the node module sharp. But unlike a normal installation via npm i sharp this layer does not use the prebuilt sharp and libvips binaries. This layer compiles libwebp, libde265, libheif, libvips, and sharp from source in order to provide HEIC/HEIF (and webp) functionality in an AWS Lambda environment.

Dependencies

CompatibleRuntimes

• nodejs12.x (v1.x)
• nodejs14.x (v2.x)
• nodejs16.x (v3.x)
• nodejs20.x (v4.x)

Contributions

If you would like to contribute to this repository, please open an issue or submit a PR.

You can also use the Sponsor button on the right if you'd like.

Licenses

• libheif and libde265 are distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. Copyright Struktur AG. See https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/blob/master/COPYING and https://github.com/strukturag/libde265/blob/master/COPYING for details.
• x265 is free to use under the GNU GPL and is also available under a commercial license. See https://www.x265.org/ for details.
• libwebp is Copyright Google Inc. See https://github.com/webmproject/libwebp/blob/master/COPYING for details.
• sharp is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Copyright Lovell Fuller and contributors. See https://github.com/lovell/sharp/blob/master/LICENSE for details.
• libvips is licensed under the LGPL 2.1+. See https://github.com/libvips/libvips/blob/master/COPYING for details.
• libaom is subject to the terms of the BSD 2 Clause License and the Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0. See https://aomedia.googlesource.com/aom/#license-header
• The remainder of the code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Related Resources

Visit sharp.pixelplumbing.com for complete instructions on sharp.

Code Repositories

• sharp
• libheif
• libde265
• libwebp
• libvips
• libaom