faaslift

Small Function as a Service (FaaS) server built with Node.js and MongoDB. Useful for deploying quick endpoint prototypes to your own server.

Setup

Server

Clone the repository to your server. Create a file called .env in the project directory and add the following fields:

MONGODB_URL=<YOUR MONGO URL WITH AUTH>
PORT=<YOUR FAVOURITE HTTP PORT>

A great place to host the Mongo instance is https://mlab.com/.

Start the server with your favourite production grade Node.js runner, e.g. pm2.

pm2 start index.js --name faaslift

Client

Install the package globally with npm.

npm i -g faaslift

Run faaslift with faaslift. Authorize the CLI with the authorize <MONGO URL> command (same URL as on the server).

Create a new endpoint with create <name>. Your endpoint is now live at http://your-server/name.

Use upload <file> <endpoint> to upload a file from your current working directory to an endpoint. Below is an example of such a file.

module.exports = function (req, res) {
  res.type('text/html');
  res.send(<h1>Hello world!</h1>');
};

req and res are Express objects.

Developing functions

Implement the following in your function file.

• Export a function (with module.exports).
• Use the parameters req (request), res (response) and optionally, secrets.

To test your function, use the start dev <file> command in the faaslift CLI. Use stop dev to stop the server.

To require 3rd party libraries, they have to be installed on the host server with NPM.

Security

The functions are NOT containerized in any way! This means that code running at an endpoint is e.g. able to crash the server or manipulate other endpoints, among other evil deeds, with a little bit of tinkering. That's why this project is solely meant for prototyping purposes.

Author

Jan Tuomi [email protected], 2018