MongoDB field level encryption with Lambda and Atlas how to include mongocryptd

Question

I try to implement MongoDB client field level encryption with an Atlas M10 cluster and AWS lambda. As far as I understand I would need to have the mongocryptd binary in my path which. How can I bundle this binary with lambda?

Answer 1

You can use Lambda Layer in order to package your dependencies. The Lambda Layer can include pure python library and binary dependencies as well.

Answer 2

Here is how I solved it. The MongoDB documentation includes a section on how to install the MongoDB enterprise version an Amazon Linux 2 (which in August 2020 is used for lambda containers): https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/install-mongodb-enterprise-on-amazon-tarball/

I chose to go with tarball installation. After downloading and unpacking the archive, I copied the mongocryptd binary into my serverless project and bundled it with the lambda. Inside the lambda handler I appended the path to binary to the current $PATH, so it is executable.