AWS Lambda function using Boto3 timeout

I have solved my own question, but am posting it anyway in the hope of saving someone else a few hours!

I have a serverless project on AWS using Python to insert a record into a kinesis queue. However when I use boto3.client('kinesis') or the put_record function it seems to hang until it times out, with no error messages or other information. Below is the function:

import boto3

def put_record_kinesis(data, stream_name, partition_key):
    print "create kinesis begin"
    kinesis = boto3.client("kinesis")

    print "put record begin"
    response = kinesis.put_record(StreamName=stream_name, Data=data, PartitionKey=partition_key)
    print "put record complete"
    print response

The serverless.yml definition is a follows:

provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: python2.7
  iamRoleStatements:
    - Effect: "Allow"
      Action:
        - "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface"
        - "ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces"
        - "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface"
        - "kinesis:*"
      Resource: "*"

  vpc:
    securityGroupIds:
      - sg-...
    subnetIds:
      - subnet-...
      - subnet-...
      - subnet-...

  stage: dev
  region: eu-west-1
  memorySize: 128

functions:
  LambdaQueueFunction:
    handler: python_file.queue
    memorySize: 1024
    timeout: 100

  LambdaDequeueFunction:
    handler: python_file.dequeue

resources:
  Resources:
    KinesisQueue:
      Type: AWS::Kinesis::Stream
      Properties:
        Name: kinesis-queue
        ShardCount: 1
    ChronosQueueMap:
      Type: AWS::Lambda::EventSourceMapping
      DependsOn:
        - "LambdaDequeueFunctionLambdaFunction"
        - "IamPolicyLambdaExecution"
      Properties:
        BatchSize: 1
        EventSourceArn:
          Fn::GetAtt:
            - "KinesisQueue"
            - "Arn"
        FunctionName:
          Fn::GetAtt:
            - "LambdaDequeueFunctionLambdaFunction"
            - "Arn"
        StartingPosition: "TRIM_HORIZON"

When I run the function I see the following in cloud watch logs:

10:53:02 | START RequestId: 027bb0cb-acb4-11e6-b20c-1b587b734943 Version: $LATEST
10:53:02 | put records begin
10:54:42 | END RequestId: 027bb0cb-acb4-11e6-b20c-1b587b734943
10:54:42 | REPORT RequestId: 027bb0cb-acb4-11e6-b20c-1b587b734943   Duration: 100002.99 ms  Billed Duration: 100000 ms Memory Size: 1024 MB Max Memory Used: 22 MB
10:54:42 | 2016-11-17T10:54:42.155Z 027bb0cb-acb4-11e6-b20c-1b587b734943 Task timed out after 100.00 seconds

It turns out that the solution was that the lambda function did not have access to the internet. By default a lambda function not in a VPC has internet access, but a lambda function inside a VPC does not.

To fix this I created a new subnet, route table, elastic IP and nat gateway. They were configured as follows:

• The nat gateway uses the elastic IP and points to any subnet with an internet gateway
• The Route table has a route for local traffic (..0.0/16 | Local | Active) and a route for all other IP's to the nat gateway (0.0.0.0/0 | NAT ID | Active)
• The is set to use the new route table.

Hope this helps someone!