Configuring region in Node.js AWS SDK

Question

Can someone explain how to fix a missing config error with Node.js? I've followed all the examples from the aws doc page but I still get this error no matter what.

{ [ConfigError: Missing region in config]
message: 'Missing region in config',
code: 'ConfigError',
time: Wed Jun 24 2015 21:39:58 GMT-0400 (EDT) }>{ thumbnail: 
 { fieldname: 'thumbnail',
 originalname: 'testDoc.pdf',
 name: 'testDoc.pdf',
 encoding: '7bit',
 mimetype: 'application/pdf',
path: 'uploads/testDoc.pdf',
 extension: 'pdf',
 size: 24,
 truncated: false,
 buffer: null } }
 POST / 200 81.530 ms - -

Here is my code:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
var dd = new AWS.DynamoDB();
var s3 = new AWS.S3();
var bucketName = 'my-bucket';

AWS.config.update({region:'us-east-1'});

(...)

score 236 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 18:41

236

How about changing the order of statements? Update AWS config before instantiating s3 and dd

var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
AWS.config.update({region:'us-east-1'});

var dd = new AWS.DynamoDB();
var s3 = new AWS.S3();

answered Jul 28 '15 at 18:41

umbrel

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Hours of searching for why this was failing.. this fixed it. – FredArters Aug 03 '17 at 21:27
1

This will set the region to `us-east-1` for all resources, use resource specific region while creating object. – Atul Kumar Apr 11 '19 at 09:12
It's just a hack without trying to figure out why nodejs aws client ignores ~\.aws\config settings – ffeast May 05 '19 at 20:30
Thanks, this was the problem I had when setting httpOptions after instantiating cloudwatch – LJT Aug 07 '19 at 02:57
@AtulKumar you are right, this is pretty insecure. In my case, the SQS service is un us-east-1, the rest in us-east-2, and some SNS in Latin America – pmiranda Dec 11 '20 at 21:04

Zanon · Answer 2 · 2016-09-19T01:40:22.750

102

I had the same issue "Missing region in config" and in my case it was that, unlike in the CLI or Python SDK, the Node SDK won't read from the ~\.aws\config file.

To solve this, you have three options:

Configure it programmatically (hard-coded): AWS.config.update({region:'your-region'});
Use an environment variable. While the CLI uses AWS_DEFAULT_REGION, the Node SDK uses AWS_REGION.
Load from a JSON file using AWS.config.loadFromPath('./config.json');

JSON format:

{ 
    "accessKeyId": "akid", 
    "secretAccessKey": "secret", 
    "region": "us-east-1" 
}

edited Sep 19 '16 at 01:40

answered Sep 19 '16 at 00:46

Zanon

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Lol. So The SDK will read from the shared credentials file, but the config thats always paired with it that, forget about it! – duhseekoh Mar 14 '17 at 20:14
12

Kudos for highlighting that CLI uses `AWS_DEFAULT_REGION` and Sdk `AWS_REGION`. That's something non-obvious and something what bit me in the past. It is highlighted at the bottom of [AWS SDK For Javascript Developer Guide - Setting Region](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v2/developer-guide/setting-region.html) but it's not obvious – Dimitry K Jan 26 '18 at 19:55
18

The SDK can read from ~/.aws/config, but you need to set the environment variable `AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG` to `true` – Gareth Oakley Feb 05 '18 at 16:44
3

This was my problem. I thought it wouldn't be stupid, and I guess that was my mistake. – Justin Force Jan 14 '19 at 19:36

score 83 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 16 '17 at 05:35

83

If you work with AWS CLI, you probably have a default region defined in ~/.aws/config. Unfortunately AWS SDK for JavaScript does not load it by default. To load it define env var

AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG=1

See https://github.com/aws/aws-sdk-js/pull/1391

answered Sep 16 '17 at 05:35

Peter Dotchev

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THANK YOU! I had already executed the other SET commands. However this one was necessary to use them in my Node.JS app. ```set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="KEY ID GOES HERE" set AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="SECRET KEY GOES HERE" set AWS_REGION="us-east-1"``` – SteckDEV Jan 29 '18 at 16:13
AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG is supported as of 2.44.0, per the SDK change log. – jarmod Mar 20 '18 at 19:06
3

worked perfectly and does not require hardcoding anything in your script: just put process.env.AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG=1; before including AWS – sashok_bg Aug 31 '18 at 14:33
worked great. For information anyone using vscode and bash shell you can add the enviornment variable as follows :- $ export AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG=1 – Tim Newton Jun 09 '20 at 15:31

score 13 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 14 '16 at 18:25

13

You can specify the region when creating the dynamodb connection (haven't tried s3 but that should work too).

var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
var dd = new AWS.DynamoDB({'region': 'us-east-1'});

answered Dec 14 '16 at 18:25

WaffleSouffle

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new AWS.DynamoDB({'region': 'us-east-1'}) doesn't work, you need to call AWS.config.update({region:'your region'}) – HaneTV Dec 22 '16 at 15:41
1

At the moment I'm testing with dynamodb [running locally](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/gettingstartedguide/GettingStarted.Download.html) so the behaviour may be different. It certainly works in all the code I'm using in that environment. `var dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB({ 'region': 'eu-west-1', 'endpoint': 'http://localhost:8000' }); var docClient = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient({"service": dynamodb});` Should work given it's [in the documentation](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/latest/AWS/DynamoDB.html#constructor-property) – WaffleSouffle Dec 22 '16 at 15:54

Manohar Reddy Poreddy · Answer 5 · 2020-01-11T06:29:33.527

Same error for me:

After doing a lot of trials I have settled on the below:

OPTION 1

set the AWS_REGION environment variable in local system only, to us-east-1 (example)

For Linux:

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1

For Windows
see: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-envvars.html

now, no need to set any lambda variables for region
also, no need to use in code, for example:
- AWS.config.update(...), this is not required
- AWS.S3(), etc., these will work without any problems. In place of S3, there can be any aws service

In a rare case if somewhere some defaults are assumed in code and you are forced to send region, then use {'region': process.env.AWS_REGION})

OPTION 2

Instead of environment variables, another way is AWS CONFIG file:

On Linux you can create below files:

~/.aws/credentials

[default]
aws_access_key_id=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
aws_secret_access_key=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

~/.aws/config

[default]
region=us-west-2
output=json

See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-files.html

Where do you set this `environment variable`? what do you mean by `local system`? — Malcolm Salvador, Jan 09 '20 at 18:50

score 10 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 15 '17 at 14:03

var AWS = require('aws-sdk');

// assign AWS credentials here in following way:

AWS.config.update({
  accessKeyId: 'asdjsadkskdskskdk',
  secretAccessKey: 'sdsadsissdiidicdsi',
  region: 'us-east-1'
});

var dd = new AWS.DynamoDB();
var s3 = new AWS.S3();

score 9 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 15 '18 at 09:22

I have gone through your code and here you are connecting to AWS services before setting the region, so i suggest you to update the region first and then connect to services or create instance of those as below -

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var AWS = require('aws-sdk');
AWS.config.update({region:'us-east-1'});

var dd = new AWS.DynamoDB();
var s3 = new AWS.S3();
var bucketName = 'my-bucket';

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 13 '16 at 16:04

This may not be the right way to do it, but I have all my configs in a separate JSON file. And this does fix the issue for me

To load the AWS config, i do this:

var awsConfig = config.aws;
AWS.config.region = awsConfig.region;
AWS.config.credentials = {
    accessKeyId: awsConfig.accessKeyId,
    secretAccessKey: awsConfig.secretAccessKey
}

config.aws is just a JSON file.

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 27 '20 at 18:57

3

I'm impressed this hasn't been posted here yet.

Instead of setting the region with AWS.config.update(), you can use

const s3 = new AWS.S3({
  region: "eu-central-1",
});

to make it instance specific.

answered Oct 27 '20 at 18:57

Sebastian

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score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 31 '17 at 19:37

You could create a common module and use it based on the region you want to

var AWS = require('aws-sdk')

module.exports = {
    getClient: function(region) {
        AWS.config.update({ region: region })
        return new AWS.S3()
    }
}

and consume it as,

 var s3Client = s3.getClient(config.region)

the idea is to Update AWS config before instantiating s3

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 11 '20 at 22:08

To the comment above, you can always it run from your local global config file ~./aws/config by adding the following:

process.env.AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG="true";

This will load your local global config file and use whatever credentials/account you are in which is really handy when iterating through multiple accounts / roles.

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 23 '20 at 12:21

You can resolve this issue right in your project directory.

npm i -D dotenv.
Create .env file in root of our project.
Set environment variable AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG=1 in that .env file.
const {config} = require("dotenv"); in the same file where you configure connection to DynamoDB.
config() before you new AWS.DynamoDB().

P.S. As someone have mentioned before, problem is that Node doesn't get data from your aws.config file

Leon Africa · Answer 13 · 2020-09-11T07:39:56.840

Best Practice would be to utilize an Amazon Cognito Identity pool.

Create an IAM Policy that defines the access to the resource you want. (Least Access Privilege)

Then create an Amazon Cognito Identity Pool allowing unauthenticated identities. Then attached the IAM Policy you created to the Unauthenticated Role for the Identity Pool.

Once that is setup you use the following code:

   AWS.config.region = 'us-east-1';
    AWS.config.credentials = new AWS.CognitoIdentityCredentials({
        IdentityPoolId: 'IdentityPoolIdHere',
    });

Amazon Cognito assumes the IAM Role specified in unauthenticated identities where Amazon STS is utilized in the background which then populates config with temporary credentials with accessibility as defined in the attached IAM Policy for the IAM Role.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Oct 21 '20 at 04:01

I know I am EXTREMELY late to the party, but I have an additional solution which worked for me.

It might be worth passing credentials to each resource directly.

let lambda = AWS.Lambda({region: "us-east-1"});
let credentials = new AWS.SharedIniFileCredentials({
    profile: PROFILE_NAME,   
});

lambda.config.credentials = credentials;

Configuring region in Node.js AWS SDK

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