Error creating S3 Bucket via resources section entry (...<bucket_name> already exists.)

Serverless Framework
1

Hi,

I am trying to create an S3 bucket as part of my AWS stack deploy. However, regardless what I try I have always been met by the same error message. I have only been running the stack for the same account to the same region, and there has never existed an S3 bucket with this name (pdf-bucket-dev), and it is not existing now.

The error message snippets I get from AWS / Serverless deploy is:
…
CloudFormation - CREATE_FAILED - AWS::S3::Bucket - PdfBucket
…
An error occurred: PdfBucket - pdf-bucket-dev already exists.

This is my serverless.yaml file:

service: sls-playground 

provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: nodejs8.10
  stage: ${opt:stage, 'dev'}
  region: eu-central-1

functions:
  hello:
    handler: handler.hello
    environment:
      PDFBUCKET: pdf-bucket-${self:provider.stage}

resources:
  Resources:
    PdfBucket:
      Type: AWS::S3::Bucket
      Properties:
        BucketName: pdf-bucket-${self:provider.stage}

I have tried my best Google skills to see if this is a known issue and what I could be missing, but I’ve come up short. Also, I’ve tried adding some of the optional Poperties to see if it would make a difference.

Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

2

S3 bucket are globally unique. Once someone creates a bucket called pdf-bucket-dev no one else can use that in their AWS account. You need to find another name.

3

you can use your project name as prefix for every bucket you want to create via serverless.
For Eg.

BucketName: sls-playground-pdf-bucket-${self:provider.stage}

So sls-playground will be a prefix in you case and you can keep your bucket unique by using this.

4

Thanks for your input. Prefixing the bucket name with the service name is of course a good best practice to create useable name spaces.

This is rather embarrassing, but changing to another bucket name did make the deploy go through…

I’m not sure why I in the Web console cannot see an S3 Bucket named “pdf-bucket-dev” though? If it existed it should have been visible there, right? I have only ever used one AWS account, which is the one serverless is set up with.

In any case, I can proceed with my deployments now. Thanks!

5

Because it most likely belongs to somebody else on a completely different account.
Globally Unique in the sense of bucket names means across ALL AWS accounts. Not just yours.
So if I create a bucket named “my-super-sekret-bucket” in my account, you won’t be able to create a bucket with that name. Nor will you be able to see it since it’s in my account.

Hope that makes it more clear.

6

Ohh. Got it! Did not realise this was the case…

Thanks all for your input.