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amazon-web-servicesyoutube-apiaws-lambdaaws-api-gatewaywebsub

Consuming RSS feed with AWS Lambda and API Gateway


I'm a newbie rails programmer, and I have even less experience with all the AWS products. I'm trying to use lambda to subscribe to and consume an rss feed from youtube. I am able to send the subscription request just fine with HTTParty from my locally hosted rails app:

query = {'hub.mode':'subscribe', 'hub.verify':'sync', 'hub.topic': 'https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNELID', 'hub.callback':'API Endpoint for Lambda'}
subscribe = 'HTTParty.post(https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/subscribe, :query=>query)

and it will ping the lambda function with a get request. I know that I need to echo back a hub.challenge string, but I don't know how. The lambda event is empty, I didn't see anything useful in the context. I tried formatting the response in the API gateway but that didn't work either. So right now when I try to subscribe I get back a 'Challenge Mismatch' error.

I know this: https://pubsubhubbub.googlecode.come/git/pubsubhubbub-core-0.3.html#subscribing explains what I'm trying to do better than what I just did, and section 6.2.1 is where the breakdown is. How do I set up either the AWS Lambda function and/or the API Gateway to reflect back the 'hub.challenge' verification token string?


Solution

  • You need to use the parameter mapping functionality of API Gateway to map the parameters from the incoming query string to a parameter passed to your Lambda function. From the documentation link you provided, it looks like you'll at least need to map the hub.challenge query string parameter, but you may also need the other parameters (hub.mode, hub.topic, and hub.verify_token) depending on what validation logic (if any) that you're implementing.

    The first step is to declare your query string parameters in the method request page. Once you have declared the parameters open the integration request page (where you specify which Lambda function API Gateway should call) and use the "+" icon to add a new template. In the template you will have to specify a content type (application/json), and then the body you want to send to Lambda. You can read both query string and header parameters using the params() function. In that input mapping field you are creating the event body that is posted to AWS Lambda. For example: { "challenge": "$input.params('hub.challenge')" }

    Documentation for mapping query string parameters