Create AWS API skeleton
Posted under » AWS on 27 April 2022
When you want to create an API you are given 4 options
Build low-latency and cost-effective REST APIs with built-in features such as OIDC and OAuth2, and native CORS support
Build a WebSocket API using persistent connections for real-time use cases such as chat applications or dashboards
Develop a REST API where you gain complete control over the request and response along with API management capabilities
Create a REST API that is only accessible from within a VPC
Basically, it is either WebSocket or Rest API. The last one is preferred.
To create a REST API we create the Lambda function first, not the other way round.
You will be asked a name and description.
Endpoint, I suggest that you use 'Private' and you can specify your 'VPC id'. This is more secure but more complicated to set up.
Now you have created a skeleton. Then you will need to specify several things.
What API methods are the usual GET, POST, PUT and DELETE etc. Let us create a GET method which is the simplest of them all.
Here, you load your Lambda function.
You might want to deploy it but you may be required to 'set up resource policy first' error.
We can allow access according to
- AWS accounts allowlist
- IP range denylist
- Source VPC Allowlist
I prefer the VPC Allowlist way. An API resource may look like below
arn:aws:execute-api:us-southeast-1:750123359361:h4d07dt546/stage1
You can harden your API this way and the Lambda permissions.
To test GET API you can just use a web browser or Curl. You will not have an endpoint if you have not deployed your API.
$ curl -IX GET https://h4d07dt546.execute-api.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/stage1
To deploy, you need to create a stage
Go to #1. Resources -> action -> deploy. You don't have to click the stage menu.
GET will just call the URL and the API will give out data. POST will allow you to put a payload and insert data at the same time.
A URL or API endpoint will be generated but it may take a few minutes / less than hour before it is propagated through the DNS. It may look like
https://h4d07dt546.execute-api.us-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/stage1 as mentioned earlier.
In Postman lingo, you can send params, headers or payload to get the API content that you want. Params is a appended to the URL like https://h4d07dt546.execute-api.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/stage1?Token=9
Using CURL to deliver POST payload is more difficult so I prefer to use Postman. For JSON payload, you put on the RAW body like this, where Key = Token and value = 9.
{
"Token": "9"
}
