Creating access points restricted to a virtual private cloud - Amazon Simple Storage Service
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Creating access points restricted to a virtual private cloud

When you create an access point, you can choose to make the access point accessible from the internet, or you can specify that all requests made through that access point must originate from a specific virtual private cloud (VPC). An access point that's accessible from the internet is said to have a network origin of Internet. It can be used from anywhere on the internet, subject to any other access restrictions in place for the access point, underlying bucket, and related resources, such as the requested objects. An access point that's only accessible from a specified VPC has a network origin of VPC, and Amazon S3 rejects any request made to the access point that doesn't originate from that VPC.

Important

You can only specify an access point's network origin when you create the access point. After you create the access point, you can't change its network origin.

To restrict an access point to VPC-only access, you include the VpcConfiguration parameter with the request to create the access point. In the VpcConfiguration parameter, you specify the VPC ID that you want to be able to use the access point. If a request is made through the access point, the request must originate from the VPC or Amazon S3 will reject it.

You can retrieve an access point's network origin using the Amazon CLI, Amazon SDKs, or REST APIs. If an access point has a VPC configuration specified, its network origin is VPC. Otherwise, the access point's network origin is Internet.

Example: Create an access point that's restricted to VPC access

The following example creates an access point named example-vpc-ap for bucket example-bucket in account 123456789012 that allows access only from the vpc-1a2b3c VPC. The example then verifies that the new access point has a network origin of VPC.

Amazon CLI
aws s3control create-access-point --name example-vpc-ap --account-id 123456789012 --bucket example-bucket --vpc-configuration VpcId=vpc-1a2b3c
aws s3control get-access-point --name example-vpc-ap --account-id 123456789012

{
    "Name": "example-vpc-ap",
    "Bucket": "example-bucket",
    "NetworkOrigin": "VPC",
    "VpcConfiguration": {
        "VpcId": "vpc-1a2b3c"
    },
    "PublicAccessBlockConfiguration": {
        "BlockPublicAcls": true,
        "IgnorePublicAcls": true,
        "BlockPublicPolicy": true,
        "RestrictPublicBuckets": true
    },
    "CreationDate": "2019-11-27T00:00:00Z"
}

To use an access point with a VPC, you must modify the access policy for your VPC endpoint. VPC endpoints allow traffic to flow from your VPC to Amazon S3. They have access control policies that control how resources within the VPC are allowed to interact with Amazon S3. Requests from your VPC to Amazon S3 only succeed through an access point if the VPC endpoint policy grants access to both the access point and the underlying bucket.

Note

To make resources accessible only within a VPC, make sure to create a private hosted zone for your VPC endpoint. To use a private hosted zone, modify your VPC settings so that the VPC network attributes enableDnsHostnames and enableDnsSupport are set to true.

The following example policy statement configures a VPC endpoint to allow calls to GetObject for a bucket named awsexamplebucket1 and an access point named example-vpc-ap.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
    {
        "Principal": "*",
        "Action": [
            "s3:GetObject"
        ],
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:s3:::awsexamplebucket1/*",
            "arn:aws:s3:us-west-2:123456789012:accesspoint/example-vpc-ap/object/*"
        ]
    }]
}
Note

The "Resource" declaration in this example uses an Amazon Resource Name (ARN) to specify the access point. For more information about access point ARNs, see Using access points.

For more information about VPC endpoint policies, see Using endpoint policies for Amazon S3 in the VPC User Guide.