Static site with AWS S3 and custom domain

Recently I found that hosting a full-static site with AWS S3 is pretty much easy.

• toc {:toc}

Necessary steps

1. Create a S3 bucket, named after domain name
   • I am using s3.jokester.info in this example.
2. Enable static website hosting in bucket properties
   • You will see an Endpoint URL in dialog of static website hosting. Remember it.
3. Create a CNAME DNS record for the endpoint
   • Example: in jokester.info domain, create a record with name of s3 and value of s3.jokester.info.s3-website-ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com.
   • NOTE: the value should be the host part in endpoint URL, not all of it.

Unnecessary work

• Setting a Bucket Policy (described in Example: Setting up a Static Website Using a Custom Domain) is no longer required.

Optional: understanding index and error page

I had difficulties understanding how index and error pages (configurable in Properties / Static website hosting) are used. After a few tries I believe it roughly works like:

# assumptions:
# - request URL is `http://BUCKET_ENDPOINT/obj`
# - the bucket has a index document of `_index.html`, and error document of `_error.html`.

if object "/obj" exists:
    if object is publicly readable:
        return that obj
    else:
        return 403
else if object "/obj/_index.html" exists:
    if it is readable:
        302 redirect to "/obj/" , and return _index.html for redirected path
    else:
        return 403
else if "Everyone" has "List objects" access in that bucket:
    return 404
else:
    return 403

#for all 403/404 cases above, the "_error.html" will be returned if it exists

Optional: enable https reverse-proxy in CloudFlare

CloudFlare provides free https reverse-proxy for domains it manage. If you are already using CloudFlare DNS, enabling it should be effortless :)

Example: a file hosted by cloudflare + s3

Note that the S3 endpoint only serves http, we have to use Flexible SSL for the whole domain in CloudFlare.

Also, S3 and CloudClare can be used together for (unlimited) serverless http/https redirection (i.e. response 301 from AWS, and have CloudFlare serve in https).