AWS S3 is a web hosting service that offers static website hosting, which allows you to host your site on Amazon Web Services and use them as the domain name. This article will walk through setting up an SSL certificate for your AWS-hosted website.
The “aws s3 ssl certificate download” is a command-line tool that allows users to set up an AWS S3 static SSL website.
Static websites are quick and simple to create. A static website may be hosted almost anywhere, but where is the ideal place? Hosting your static website in an AWS S3 bucket is an excellent option if you have an AWS account. When you combine that configuration with AWS’s CloudFront content delivery network (CDN), you’ll have an AWS S3 Static SSL website up and running in no time!
In this article, you’ll learn how to put up an example static website on S3 that uses CloudFront as a CDN.
What’s the Difference Between Static and Dynamic Websites?
Prerequisites
This lesson will go through many examples. If you want to join in, make sure you have the following items:
- An existing AWS S3 bucket — For this tutorial, we’ll utilize the gudnex-pail S3 bucket. Check to see whether the bucket is limiting public access. Your static website will be published on the Internet once it is finished and must be visited by the public.
- AWS IAM user having a variety of admin privileges. The root account is used since the training will touch on several different AWS services.
- Domain name registration (optional). You’ll need a registered domain name later in the lesson if you want to learn how to utilize it to host your static website.
- A frontend application or a static webpage – As an example, the lesson utilizes a GitHub repository for an Interior Consultant.
S3 Uploading Website Files
It’s time to upload your website to your S3 bucket after you’ve built your S3 bucket and have a collection of website files that will make up your website. For those interested in learning how to create a website from scratch, the upcoming steps will be particularly useful.
How to Use the AWS CLI to Upload Local Files to AWS S3
1. Go to the AWS Management Console in your preferred web browser.
2. Go to the S3 bucket where your website will be hosted.
3. On the S3 bucket page’s Objects tab, click Upload, then add all of your website’s files and click Upload at the bottom when completed. Clone the GitHub repo on your local computer and upload all files to the S3 bucket if you’re using the tutorial’s sample project.
To add files, click the Add files button, and to add folders, click the Add folder button. Upload the top project folder instead of the full project at once. You’ll see that the hierarchy isn’t exactly what you’d anticipate.
Adding Content to Your Website
4. Finally, to return to the S3 bucket, click Close. All of your files and folders should now be visible in the S3 bucket.
Make sure your index page (default or index) is at the top of the S3 bucket!
Showing that the upload is finished
Keeping the S3 Bucket Safe
After you’ve uploaded your data to the S3 bucket, you’ll need to protect it using an S3 bucket policy. This policy applies to all public users that want to read objects (website files) in the bucket.
1. In the AWS Management Console, go to your S3 bucket’s Permissions page and scroll down to the Bucket policy.
2. Click the Update button below to edit the bucket policy.
Bucket Policy Revision
3. Copy and paste the following bucket policy into the Bucket policy box. The bucket policy below grants all users (“Principal”: “*”) access to read any objects (“Action”:[“s3:GetObject”]) in the S3 bucket.
{ “Version”:”2012-10-17″, “Statement”:[ { “Sid”:”AddPerm”, “Effect”:”Allow”, “Principal”: “*”, “Action”:[“s3:GetObject”], “Resource”:[“arn:aws:s3:::<your bucket name here>/*”] } ] }
4. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen to save the bucket policy.
Policy of Saving Buckets
Static Website Hosting Enablement
Because you’re utilizing the bucket as a static website, you’ll need to enable static website hosting after creating the bucket policy.
1. Go to the Properties page in your S3 bucket and scroll down to the Static website hosting area.
Getting to Properties
2. Click the Edit button beneath the Static website hosting section to view the static website hosting options.
Static Website Hosting Access
3. Select the Allow option to enable static website hosting, as shown below.
Static Website Hosting Enablement
4. Provide the default home page (Index document) and error page for your website (Error document). Because the Error document field is optional, you may leave it blank. When people visit your website, the index document is the first page they view. However, if there is a problem, the error document will show instead.
Including a Home Page and an Error Page on Your Website
5. Click the Save changes button to save the changes you made in the Index and Error document box, as shown below.
Changes to Index and Error Documents Saved
6. Scroll down to the Static website hosting section in the Properties page and take note of the website endpoint. You’ll utilize the website endpoint to test your website. The index document you created in step 4 will be returned by this endpoint.
Observing the Website Endpoint
7. Finally, put your website to the test. To do so, copy and paste the website endpoint from step 6 into your browser’s address bar. You’ll be able to view your website openly if your configuration is proper, as seen below.
As you can see in the URL bar, your website is currently not secure (Not secure). Later in the training, you’ll concentrate on safeguarding your website.
Checking whether your website is publicly accessible
Establishing a Hosted Zone
The website endpoint specified in step six of the preceding section may now be used by Internet users to view your website. However, you’ll usually want your visitors to go to www.mydomain.com to view your site.
When you establish a custom domain, you must first construct a DNS zone with a CNAME record that directs traffic from www.mydomain.com to your website endpoint. Because your static website is hosted on AWS, you may use AWS Route 53 to manage your domain’s DNS.
Let’s construct a hosted zone for your custom domain in Route 53 that contains the DNS records you’ll need to route traffic to your static website endpoint.
1. From the AWS administration interface, search for Route 53 in the search field and click on Route 53 when it appears in the results.
2. Click on the Create hosted zone button to start Establishing a Hosted Zone, as shown below.
Start Creating a Hosted Zone
3. Under the domain name text area, type your domain name, such as example.com. The user will reach your website using this domain name.
Domain Name to Enter
4. Make sure the Type is set to Public Hosted Zone, since you’re only interested in routing traffic via the Internet, not a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
By selecting the Establish hosted zone button at the bottom of the page, you can now create a hosted zone.
Creating a Hosted Public Zone
5. If you successfully created your hosted zone, you’ll see the success message below at the top of the page. Name Server (NS) and Start of Authority (SOA) records have also been added to the domain name, according to the success message. NS records link URLs to your website server’s IP address, while SOA records indicate the domain’s basic DNS information.
Keep track of the name servers listed below, since you’ll need them for an NS upgrade later.
Hosted Area Successfully created
6. Give your domain registrar the name servers you saw in step five. This instructs your domain registrar where to seek for DNS services. Because your DNS records are on AWS Route 53, you’ll direct them there in this scenario.
Because upgrading the name servers varies by provider, below are instructions for a few major hosting platforms:
Obtaining an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate
It’s time to get an SSL certificate for your domain to secure HTTPS connections to your website now that you’ve set up your hosted zone and changed the name servers.
In this article, you’ll use the Amazon Certificate Manager to obtain a certificate for your domain (ACM). However, rather than seeking a certificate, if you already have one, import it into ACM. The HTTP connection to/from your static website is encrypted by both an existing public-issued and requested certificate.
To utilize CloudFront with an AWS certificate, you must obtain or import the certificate in the US-East-1 region.
1. In the AWS management interface, search for ACM or Amazon Certificate Manager and click on certificate manager.
2. To get an SSL certificate, click the Get started option under Provision certificates, as shown below.
Obtaining an SSL Certificate Request
3. Select the Request a public certificate option, then click the Request a certificate button to request a public certificate. Because your website will be accessible over the Internet, you’ll need a public certificate that customers can trust.
Obtaining a Public Certificate Request
4. Type in the domain name you already registered, such as example.com, as seen below.
Using ACM to enter domain names
5. Select the DNS validation option to verify the certificate request ACM sends you, as seen in the figure below. To confirm that you control the domain, DNS validation will need you to add a CNAME record to the DNS settings.
If you don’t have authorization to change your domain’s DNS zone, you may alternatively use the Email validation option.
Domain Validation Method Selection
6. Click Review without adding any tags. If you want to categorize these resources according to an organizational framework, you may add tags here.
Leaving No Tags in Place
7. Review your inputs and, if they are right, click the Confirm and Request button to submit the request.
Examining Requests for Certificates
The Request in Progress message will appear when you submit the request. The message advises that you must take further steps to complete the certificate’s validation and acceptance.
Viewing the Status of Certificate Requests
8. Now, in the Domain column, click the right arrow symbol beside the domain to expand the validation instructions.
As seen below, you must add a CNAME record to your domain’s DNS setup in order to verify it. The record’s name and value will be given to you, and you’ll create the record on the provider’s platform.
The supplier is responsible for setting up the record. However, since you already established a hosted zone in Route 53, click the Create record in Route 53 button. This will add the record to the hosted zone automatically.
Route 53 CNAME Record Creation
9. In the pop-up box, click the Create button to finish generating the record in Route 53, as seen in the figure below.
Confirming Route 53 CNAME Record Creation in Hosted Zone
Finally, click the Continue option to be led to the dashboard, where you may check the progress of the certificate.
Certificate status check
The certificate management is attempting to verify the domain’s ownership, as shown by the Pending validation status.
Viewing the Certificate Request Pending Validation
Validation of the domain might take up to 30 minutes. The license will be issued and the status will change to Issued after it has been verified, as seen in the picture below.
Viewing the Validation Status of Domain Ownership
Using CloudFront to distribute an AWS S3 static website
Your domain has an SSL certificate, but the contents of your website are housed on S3, which does not support HTTPS. You may use Amazon CloudFront, an AWS Content Delivery Network (CDN) service, to deliver a secure version of your static website housed on Amazon S3.
Using a CDN, such as AWS CloudFront, will bring your website closer to your audience, improving speed and reliability.
1. Search for CloudFront in the AWS administration console’s search box, then choose CloudFront from the list of results.
2. Click the Create a CloudFront distribution button, as shown below, to create a CloudFront distribution. A distribution is a single CDN that is dedicated to a single website or resource.
CloudFront Distribution Setup
3. Enter your S3 bucket endpoint in the Origin domain box to create an origin domain. The origin domain specifies the location of your website’s content. Setting up an origin domain tells the distribution where to receive the resource it will serve.
Creating a Domain of Origin
4. Select the Redirect HTTP to HTTPS option under Viewer protocol policy under the Default cache behavior section. This option converts all HTTP traffic to HTTPS for the static website, ensuring that the website’s content is always supplied securely.
Setting Viewer Protocol Policy and Cache Behavior
5. In the Settings area, scroll down to Add item, as shown below. Instead of using the domain name CloudFront gives to the distribution, you may use your own domain name for safe access to your website.
In the input area underneath the Alternate domain (CNAME) section, type your domain name (example.com). In the Custom SSL certificate section, pick the certificate that was previously granted to your domain.
Adding Your Web Address
6. Next, scroll down to the default root object box and type in the name of the default home page. The default home page is index.html, as seen below.
When using CloudFront to distribute a static website, leave the rest of the settings alone. To create the distribution, go to the bottom and click the Create distribution button.
Putting Together the Distribution
You should notice a message at the top indicating that your distribution was successfully generated.
Notification of Distribution Success
7. As seen in the figure below, click Distributions to examine your newly established distribution.
New Distribution in View
8. Finally, copy the domain name of the distribution from the Domain name column and paste it into the address bar of a browser to see whether your website seems to be safe. By default, your website’s home page should be visible.
In your browser’s address bar, you’ll notice a https prefix or a padlock symbol, which shows that the connection to the website is secure, as seen below.
Checking whether your website seems to be secure
How to Use Your Own Domain with CloudFront
CloudFront is still sending traffic to your S3 bucket endpoint and not to your custom domain at this time. Let’s make a difference. Instead of using CloudFront’s domain to distribute your website, you may prefer to use your own. If this is the case, an A record for the domain name you already registered is required.
To see your hosted zone(s) list, go to Route 53 dashboard > DNS administration > Hosted zone.
Using the Hosted Zone
2. In the table on the Hosted zones page, click on your domain name. You’ll be sent to a page where you may create an A record type. This domain’s inbound traffic is sent to your CloudFront distribution through an A record.
Incoming Traffic to CloudFront Distribution: Creating an A Record Type
3. Now, as seen below, click the Create record button to create a record.
In the Hosted Zone, make a record.
4. Configure the following elements on the Quick create record page, as shown in the picture below:
- In the Record type choose box, choose A as the record type.
- By pressing the Alias toggle button at the right-most area of the page, you may activate the alias option and signal that you wish to establish an Alias. An Alias allows you to direct traffic to a specific AWS resource. The CloudFront distribution you created earlier is the resource you want to use to route traffic.
- Set a CloudFront distribution to receive domain traffic. Pick the Alias to CloudFront distribution in the Route traffic to select box to do this. You should notice that by default, an area (US-East-1) has been chosen.
- Now, in the Choose distribution section, enter your CloudFront distribution domain name and click the Create records button. The domain traffic will now be routed to your CloudFront distribution.
Adding Information to the Record
You should get a message at the top of the page if you successfully created the entry. A record is listed in the Records table as shown below.
Viewing Your Record That You Successfully Created
5. Finally, use the custom domain you created to access your website.
Even though you accessed the page through HTTP, your browser transferred you to HTTPS. Because of the viewer protocol policy you established in step 4 of the “Distributing Website through CloudFront” section, the browser performed this.
Because propagating your domain takes time, the changes may not appear right away.
Viewing a Protected Website
Conclusion
You’ve learned how to host your static website using AWS services during this guide. You’ve also used SSL certificates to secure your website and CloudFront to optimize your website’s delivery. If you’re still lost, consider hiring a web development company in Qatar.
Would you use AWS S3 and CloudFront to protect your next static website project now?
The “secure s3 static website” is a website that uses an Amazon Web Services service called S3. It allows users to store their files and images on the cloud and make them accessible from anywhere.
Related Tags
- s3 ssl without cloudfront
- aws s3 static website https
- s3 static website ssl with cloudfront
- aws certificate manager s3 static website
- aws s3 static website headers
