Fn is a lightweight Docker-based serverless functions platform you can run on your laptop, server, or cloud. In this introductory tutorial we'll walk through developing a function using the JavaScript programming language and Node.js (without installing any Node.js tools!) and deploying that function to a local Fn server. We'll also learn about the core Fn concepts like applications and triggers.
- Set aside about 15 minutes to complete this tutorial.
- Make sure Fn server is up and running by completing the Install and Start Fn Tutorial.
- Make sure you have set your Fn context registry value for local development. (for example, "fndemouser". See here.)
As you make your way through this tutorial, look out for this icon.
Whenever you see it, it's time for you to perform an action.
Now that Fn server is up and running, let's start with a very simple "hello world" function written in Node.js JavaScript. Don't worry, you don't need to know Node! In fact you don't even need to have Node installed on your development machine as Fn provides the necessary Node tools as a Docker container. Let's walk through your first function to become familiar with the process and how Fn supports development.
In the terminal type the following.
fn init --runtime node --trigger http nodefn
The output will be
Creating function at: /nodefn
Runtime: node
Function boilerplate generated.
func.yaml created.The fn init command creates a simple function with a bit of boilerplate to get
you started. The --runtime option is used to indicate that the function we're
going to develop will be written in Node. A number of other runtimes are also
supported. The --trigger option creates an HTTP trigger for the function
allowing you to invoke the function from a URL. Fn creates the simple function
along with several supporting files in the /nodefn directory.
With your function created change into the /nodefn directory.
cd nodefn
Now get a list of the directory contents.
ls
func.js func.yaml package.jsonThe func.js file which contains your actual Node function is generated along
with several supporting files. To view your Node function type:
cat func.js
const fdk=require('@fnproject/fdk');
fdk.handle(function(input){
let name = 'World';
if (input.name) {
name = input.name;
}
return {'message': 'Hello ' + name}
})This function looks for JSON input in the form of {"name": "Bob"}. If this
JSON example is passed to the function, the function returns {"message":"Hello Bob"}. If no JSON data is found, the function returns {"message":"Hello World"}.
The fn init command generated a func.yaml function
configuration file. Let's look at the contents:
cat func.yaml
schema_version: 20180708
name: nodefn
version: 0.0.1
runtime: node
entrypoint: node func.js
triggers:
- name: nodefn-trigger
type: http
source: /nodefn-triggerThe generated func.yaml file contains metadata about your function and
declares a number of properties including:
- schema_version--identifies the version of the schema for this function file. Essentially, it determines which fields are present in
func.yaml. - name--the name of the function. Matches the directory name.
- version--automatically starting at 0.0.1.
- runtime--the name of the runtime/language which was set based on the value set
in
--runtime. - entrypoint--the name of the executable to invoke when your function is called,
in this case
node func.js. - triggers--identifies the automatically generated trigger name and source. For example, this function would be requested from the URL
http://localhost:8080/t/appname/nodefn-trigger. Whereappnameis the name of the app chosen for your function when it is deployed.
There are other user specifiable properties but these will suffice for this example. Note that the name of your function is taken from the containing folder name. We'll see this come into play later on.
The fn init command generated one other file.
package.json-- specifies all the Node.js dependencies for your Node function.
Fn handles Node.js dependencies in the following way:
- If a
package.jsonis present without anode_modulesdirectory, an Fn build runs annpm installwithin the build process and installs your dependencies. - If the
node_modulesis present, Fn assumes you have provided the dependencies yourself and no installation is performed.
With the nodefn directory containing func.js and func.yaml you've got
everything you need to deploy the function to Fn server. This server could be
running in the cloud, in your datacenter, or on your local machine like we're
doing here.
Make sure your context is set to default and you are using a demo user. Use the fn list context command to check.
fn list contexts
CURRENT NAME PROVIDER API URL REGISTRY
* default default http://localhost:8080 fndemouserIf your context is not configured, please see the context installation instructions before proceeding. Your context determines where your function is deployed.
Deploying your function is how you publish your function and make it accessible
to other users and systems. To see the details of what is happening during a
function deploy, use the --verbose switch. The first time you build a
function of a particular language it takes longer as Fn downloads the necessary
Docker images. The --verbose option allows you to see this process.
In your terminal type the following:
fn --verbose deploy --app nodeapp --local
You should see output similar to:
Deploying nodefn to app: nodeapp
Bumped to version 0.0.2
Building image fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2
FN_REGISTRY: fndemouser
Current Context: default
Sending build context to Docker daemon 5.12kB
Step 1/9 : FROM fnproject/node:dev as build-stage
dev: Pulling from fnproject/node
88286f41530e: Pull complete
f2f101846395: Pull complete
ff57497de382: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:613685c22f65d01f2264bdd49b8a336488e14faf29f3ff9b6bf76a4da23c4700
Status: Downloaded newer image for fnproject/node:dev
---> 016382f39a51
Step 2/9 : WORKDIR /function
---> Running in 17d09f41ee90
Removing intermediate container 17d09f41ee90
---> db4b1e998348
Step 3/9 : ADD package.json /function/
---> 5acbd4f3710d
Step 4/9 : RUN npm install
---> Running in 9c0da981c192
npm info it worked if it ends with ok
npm info using npm@5.3.0
npm info using node@v8.4.0
npm info lifecycle hellofn@1.0.0~preinstall: hellofn@1.0.0
npm http fetch GET 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/@fnproject%2ffdk 456ms
http fetch GET 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/@fnproject/fdk/-/fdk-0.0.11.tgz 206ms
npm info lifecycle @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11~preinstall: @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11
npm info linkStuff @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11
npm info lifecycle @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11~install: @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11
npm info lifecycle @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11~postinstall: @fnproject/fdk@0.0.11
npm info linkStuff hellofn@1.0.0
npm info lifecycle hellofn@1.0.0~install: hellofn@1.0.0
npm info lifecycle hellofn@1.0.0~postinstall: hellofn@1.0.0
npm info lifecycle hellofn@1.0.0~prepublish: hellofn@1.0.0
npm info lifecycle hellofn@1.0.0~prepare: hellofn@1.0.0
npm info lifecycle undefined~preshrinkwrap: undefined
npm info lifecycle undefined~shrinkwrap: undefined
npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file.
npm info lifecycle undefined~postshrinkwrap: undefined
npm WARN hellofn@1.0.0 No repository field.
added 1 package in 1.486s
npm info ok
Removing intermediate container 9c0da981c192
---> 5ea578bf9df9
Step 5/9 : FROM fnproject/node
latest: Pulling from fnproject/node
Digest: sha256:613685c22f65d01f2264bdd49b8a336488e14faf29f3ff9b6bf76a4da23c4700
Status: Downloaded newer image for fnproject/node:latest
---> 016382f39a51
Step 6/9 : WORKDIR /function
---> Using cache
---> db4b1e998348
Step 7/9 : ADD . /function/
---> 6f9312321676
Step 8/9 : COPY --from=build-stage /function/node_modules/ /function/node_modules/
---> 31399d7f619d
Step 9/9 : ENTRYPOINT ["node", "func.js"]
---> Running in 9a5e505e8bb2
Removing intermediate container 9a5e505e8bb2
---> 2f7b61423621
Successfully built 2f7b61423621
Successfully tagged fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2
Updating function nodefn using image fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2...
Successfully created app: nodeapp
Successfully created function: nodefn with fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2
Successfully created trigger: nodefn-triggerAll the steps to load the current language Docker image are displayed.
Functions are grouped into applications so by specifying --app nodeapp
we're implicitly creating the application "nodeapp" and associating our
function with it.
Specifying --local does the deployment to the local server but does
not push the function image to a Docker registry--which would be necessary if
we were deploying to a remote Fn server.
The output message
Updating function nodefn using image fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2...
let's us know that the function is packaged in the image
"fndemouser/nodefn:0.0.2".
Note that the containing folder name 'nodefn' was used as the name of the
generated Docker container and used as the name of the function that
container was bound to. By convention it is also used to create the trigger name
nodefn-trigger.
Normally you deploy an application without the --verbose option. If you rerun the command a new image and version is created and loaded.
There are two ways to call your deployed function.
The first is using the fn CLI which makes invoking your function relatively
easy. Type the following:
fn invoke nodeapp nodefn
which results in:
{"message":"Hello World"}When you invoked "nodeapp nodefn" the fn server looked up the "nodeapp" application and then looked for the Docker container image bound to the "nodefn" function and executed the code.
You can also pass data to the run command. Note that you set the content type for the data passed. For example:
echo -n '{"name":"Bob"}' | fn invoke nodeapp nodefn --content-type application/json
{"message":"Hello Bob"}The JSON data was parsed and since name was set to "Bob", that value is passed
in the output.
If you have used Docker before the output of fn --verbose deploy should look
familiar--it looks like the output you see when running docker build
with a Dockerfile. Of course this is exactly what's happening! When
you deploy a function like this Fn is dynamically generating a Dockerfile
for your function, building a container, and then loading it for execution.
NOTE: Fn is actually using two images. The first contains the language compiler and all the necessary build tools. The second image packages all dependencies and any necessary language runtime components. Using this strategy, the final function image size can be kept as small as possible. Smaller Docker images are naturally faster to push and pull from a repository which improves overall performance. For more details on this technique see Multi-Stage Docker Builds for Creating Tiny Go Images.
When using fn deploy --local, fn server builds and packages your function
into a container image which resides on your local machine.
As Fn is built on Docker you can use the docker command to see the local
container image you just generated. You may have a number of Docker images so
use the following command to see only those created by fndemouser:
docker images | grep fndemouser
You should see something like:
fndemouser/nodefn 0.0.2 b9330bddec26 2 minutes ago 66.4MBThe fn CLI provides a couple of commands to let us see what we've deployed.
fn list apps returns a list of all of the defined applications.
fn list apps
Which, in our case, returns the name of the application we created when we
deployed our nodefn function:
NAME
nodeappWe can also see the functions that are defined by an application. Since
functions are exposed via triggers, the fn list triggers <appname> command
is used. To list the functions included in "nodeapp" we can type:
fn list triggers nodeapp
FUNCTION NAME TYPE SOURCE ENDPOINT
nodefn nodefn-trigger http /nodefn-trigger http://localhost:8080/t/nodeapp/nodefn-triggerThe output confirms that nodeapp contains a nodefn function that can be called via this URL.
The other way to invoke your function is via HTTP. The Fn server exposes our
deployed function at http://localhost:8080/t/nodeapp/nodefn-trigger, a URL
that incorporates our application and function trigger as path elements.
Use curl to invoke the function:
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/t/nodeapp/nodefn-trigger
The result is once again the same.
{"message":"Hello World"}We can again pass JSON data to our function get the value of name passed to the function back.
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name":"Bob"}' http://localhost:8080/t/nodeapp/nodefn-trigger
The result is once again the same.
{"message":"Hello Bob"}Congratulations! In this tutorial you've accomplished a lot. You've created your first function, deployed it to your local Fn server and invoked it over HTTP.
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