Get started with a CloudFront standard distribution - Amazon CloudFront
PrerequisitesCreate bucketUpload contentCreate distributionAccess the contentClean upEnhance your basic distribution
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Get started with a CloudFront standard distribution

The procedures in this section show you how to use CloudFront to set up a standard distribution that does the following:

  • Creates an S3 bucket to use as your distribution origin.

  • Stores the original versions of your objects in an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket.

  • Uses origin access control (OAC) to send authenticated requests to your Amazon S3 origin. OAC sends requests through CloudFront to prevent viewers from accessing your S3 bucket directly. For more information about OAC, see Restrict access to an Amazon S3 origin.

  • Uses the CloudFront domain name in URLs for your objects (for example, https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/index.html).

  • Keeps your objects in CloudFront edge locations for the default duration of 24 hours (the minimum duration is 0 seconds).

Most of this is configured automatically for you when you create a CloudFront distribution.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure that you’ve completed the steps in Set up your Amazon Web Services account.

Create an Amazon S3 bucket

An Amazon S3 bucket is a container for files (objects) or folders. CloudFront can distribute almost any type of file for you when an S3 bucket is the source. For example, CloudFront can distribute text, images, and videos. There is no maximum for the amount of data that you can store on Amazon S3.

For this tutorial, you create an S3 bucket with the provided sample hello world files that you will use to create a basic webpage.

To create a bucket

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/s3/.

  2. We recommend that you use our Hello World sample for this Getting started. Download the hello world webpage: hello-world-html.zip. Unzip it and save the css folder and index file in a convenient location, such as the desktop where you are running your browser.

  3. Choose Create bucket.

  4. Enter a unique Bucket name that conforms to the General purpose buckets naming rules in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

  5. For Region, we recommend choosing an Amazon Web Services Region that is geographically close to you. (This reduces latency and costs.)

    • Choosing a different Region works, too. You might do this to address regulatory requirements, for example.

  6. Leave all other settings at their defaults, and then choose Create bucket.

Upload the content to the bucket

After you create your Amazon S3 bucket, upload the contents of the unzipped hello world file to it. (You downloaded and unzipped this file in Create an Amazon S3 bucket.)

To upload the content to Amazon S3

  1. In the General purpose buckets section, choose the name of your new bucket.

  2. Choose Upload.

  3. On the Upload page, drag the css folder and index file into the drop area.

  4. Leave all other settings at their defaults, and then choose Upload.

Create a CloudFront distribution that uses an Amazon S3 origin with OAC

For this tutorial, you will create a CloudFront distribution that uses an Amazon S3 origin with origin access control (OAC). OAC helps you securely send authenticated requests to your Amazon S3 origin. For more information about OAC, see Restrict access to an Amazon S3 origin.

To create a CloudFront distribution with an Amazon S3 origin that uses OAC

  1. Open the CloudFront console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudfront/v4/home.

  2. Choose Create distribution.

  3. Enter a Distribution name for the standard distribution. The name will appear as the value for the Name key as a tag. You can change this value later. You can add up to 50 tags for your standard distribution. For more information, see Tag a distribution.

  4. Choose Single website or app, Next.

  5. Choose Next.

  6. For Origin type page, select the Amazon S3.

  7. For S3 origin, choose Browse S3 and select the S3 bucket that you created for this tutorial.

  8. For Settings, choose Use recommended origin settings. CloudFront will use the default recommended cache and origin settings for your Amazon S3 origin, including setting up Origin Access Control (OAC). For more information about the recommended settings, see Preconfigured distribution settings reference.

  9. Choose Next.

  10. On the Enable security protections page, choose whether to enable Amazon WAF security protections.

  11. Choose Next.

  12. Choose Create distribution. CloudFront updates the S3 bucket policy for you.

  13. Review the Details section for your new distribution. When your distribution is done deploying, the Last modified field changes from Deploying to a date and time.

  14. Record the domain name that CloudFront assigns to your distribution. It looks similar to the following: d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net.

Before using the distribution and S3 bucket from this tutorial in a production environment, make sure to configure it to meet your specific needs. For information about configuring access in a production environment, see Configure secure access and restrict access to content.

Access your content through CloudFront

To access your content through CloudFront, combine the domain name for your CloudFront distribution with the main page for your content. (You recorded your distribution domain name in Create a CloudFront distribution that uses an Amazon S3 origin with OAC.)

  • Your distribution domain name might look like this: d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net.

  • The path to the main page of a website is typically /index.html.

Therefore, the URL to access your content through CloudFront might look like this:

https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/index.html.

If you followed the previous steps and used the hello world webpage, you should see a webpage that says Hello world!.

When you upload more content to this S3 bucket, you can access the content through CloudFront by combining the CloudFront distribution domain name with the path to the object in the S3 bucket. For example, if you upload a new file named new-page.html to the root of your S3 bucket, the URL looks like this:

https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/new-page.html.

Clean up

If you created your distribution and S3 bucket only as a learning exercise, delete them so that you no longer accrue charges. Delete the distribution first. For more information, see the following links:

Enhance your basic distribution

This Get started tutorial provides a minimal framework for creating a distribution. We recommend that you explore the following enhancements: