Installation

The quickest way get started with LocalStack is by using the LocalStack CLI. It allows you to start LocalStack from your command line. Please make sure that you have a working Docker installation on your machine before moving on.

The CLI starts and manages the LocalStack Docker container. For alternative methods of managing the LocalStack container, see our alternative installation instructions.

To verify that the LocalStack CLI was installed correctly, you can check the version in your terminal:

You are all set!

Note

Once you’ve set up your auth token, you can start LocalStack with the following command:

The LocalStack CLI allows you to easily update the different components of LocalStack. To check the various options available for updating, run:

Note

Besides using the CLI, there are other ways of starting and managing your LocalStack instance:

• LocalStack Desktop
  Get a desktop experience and work with your local LocalStack instance via the UI.

• LocalStack Docker Extension
  Use the LocalStack extension for Docker Desktop to work with your LocalStack instance.

• Docker-Compose
  Use Docker Compose to configure and start your LocalStack Docker container.

• Docker
  Use the Docker CLI to manually start the LocalStack Docker container.

• LocalStack Operator
  Use the LocalStack Operator to deploy and manage LocalStack instances inside a Kubernetes cluster.

LocalStack runs inside a Docker container, and the above options are different ways to start and manage the LocalStack Docker container.

The LocalStack emulator is available on Docker Hub (localstack/localstack-pro).

For a comprehensive overview of the LocalStack images, check out our Docker images documentation.

Learn more about our desktop client at LocalStack Desktop and download it here.

Install our official Docker Desktop extension to manage LocalStack. See LocalStack Docker Extension for more information.

To use LocalStack without the LocalStack CLI, you have the option of running the LocalStack Docker container by yourself. If you want to manually manage your Docker container, it’s usually a good idea to use Docker Compose in order to simplify your container configuration.

• Docker
• Docker Compose (version 1.9.0+)

You can start LocalStack with Docker Compose by configuring a docker-compose.yml file. Docker Compose v1.9.0 and above is supported.

Start the container by running the following command:

Note

Please note that there are a few pitfalls when configuring your stack manually via docker-compose (e.g., required container name, Docker network, volume mounts, and environment variables). We recommend using the LocalStack CLI to validate your configuration, which will print warning messages in case it detects any potential misconfigurations:

You can also directly start the LocalStack container using the Docker CLI instead of Docker-Compose. This method requires more manual steps and configuration, but it gives you more control over the container settings.

Please make sure that you have a working Docker installation on your machine before moving on. You can check if Docker is correctly configured on your machine by executing docker info in your terminal. If it does not report an error (but shows information on your Docker system), you’re good to go.

You can start the Docker container simply by executing the following docker run command:

Note

If you want to deploy LocalStack in your Kubernetes cluster, you can use the LocalStack Operator.

Now that you have LocalStack up and running, the following resources might be useful for your next steps:

• Check out our Quickstart guide if you are a new user to get started with LocalStack quickly.
• Use the LocalStack integrations to interact with LocalStack and other integrated tools, for example:
  • Use awslocal to use the AWS CLI against your local cloud!
  • Use the Serverless Framework with LocalStack!
  • And many more!
• Find out how to configure LocalStack such that it perfectly fits your need.
• Use LocalStack in your CI environment to increase your code quality.
• Checkout LocalStack’s Cloud Developer Tools to further increase your development efficiency with LocalStack.
• Find out about the ways you can configure LocalStack.

If you can successfully install LocalStack using pip but you cannot use it in your terminal, you most likely haven’t set up your operating system’s / terminal’s PATH variable (in order to tell them where to find programs installed via pip).

• If you are using Windows, you can enable the PATH configuration when installing Python, as described in the official docs of Python.
• If you are using a MacOS or Linux operating system, please make sure that the PATH is correctly set up - either system wide, or in your terminal.

As a workaround you can call the LocalStack CLI python module directly:

If you are using the localstack CLI to start LocalStack, but the container is not starting, please check the following:

• Uncheck the Use kernel networking for UDP option in Docker Desktop (Settings → Resources → Network) or follow the steps in our documentation to disable it.
• Start LocalStack with a specific DNS address:

• Remove port 53 as indicated in our standard docker-compose.yml file.

You can now avail logging output and error reporting using LocalStack logs. To access the logs, run the following command:

AWS requests are now logged uniformly in the INFO log level (set by default or when DEBUG=0). The format is:

Requests to HTTP endpoints are logged in a similar way:

You can share the LocalStack logs with us to help us identify issues. To share the logs, call the diagnostic endpoint:

Ensure that the diagnostic endpoint is run after you have tried reproducing the affected task. After running the task, run the diagnostic endpoint and share the archive file with your team members or LocalStack Support.

We have extensive network troubleshooting documentation available here.

If this does not solve your problem then please reach out to LocalStack Support.