Skip to main content

Story of Hosting a Static Website on AWS

I recently went through this process of hosting a static website on Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 bucket, mapping it to a custom domain, and enabling HTTPS and found it to be a bit complex, so I wanted to share my experience to help others.

Since, I wanted to share my website with the world but I needed a place to host it. So, I turned to AWS S3, a storage service that could handle the job.

First, I created a bucket (like a digital container) on S3 and uploaded my website files. Initially, I made the bucket public for easy access, but this meant I had to type the entire file name (e.g., index.html) every time I visited. This wasn't ideal.

To avoid the long URL, I enabled static website hosting on the S3 bucket. This allowed me to access my website without specifying the filename. However, the provided URL was long and difficult to remember.

Needing a better address, I registered a domain name (e.g., abc.com) from a third-party like GoDaddy. But how could I connect my domain to the S3 bucket?

Enter Route 53, AWS's custom DNS service. I created A records in Route 53, one for abc.com and another for www.abc.com. This pointed my domain to the S3 bucket, but I still had an issue because the website was accessible only via HTTP.

Security is crucial, so I wanted to switch from HTTP to the secure HTTPS protocol. However, S3 buckets can't directly use HTTPS certificates.

The solution came in two parts:

  1. AWS Certificate Manager (ACM): I used ACM to register an SSL certificate for my domain. However, this certificate couldn't be directly used by the S3 bucket.

  2. AWS CloudFront: This service delivers content securely. I created a CloudFront distribution with my domain name and linked it to the ACM certificate (created in the US Virginia region for compatibility and due to regional limitations). CloudFront even provided a shorter URL, but it still wasn't ideal.

Finally, I removed the A records that directly pointed to the S3 bucket (as we wouldn't need HTTP access anymore). CloudFront created new A records for my domain in Route 53, allowing access through both abc.com and www.abc.com. I also deleted the unnecessary www.abc.com bucket since CloudFront could handle both URLs.

With CloudFront redirecting HTTP requests to HTTPS, I achieved a secure and user-friendly way to access my website. This journey through the AWS cloud may seem complex, but it empowers anyone to host their website with ease and security.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unlock protected blocks in Siemens SIMATIC Step 7

Recently I'd been called by Hindalco's Fabrication Plant division to unlock the protected blocks in Siemens SIMATIC Step 7. They were in need to unlock those blocks since an year because of 1 million Rupees of loss per month. They want to re-program those blocks but it was locked by the man who'd done the setup. From the people working in that department, I came to know that they were trying to call that man (someone from Italy) right here but he's not coming. Actually, what he'd done was that he'd locked some of the blocks and deleted the source file. And Siemens didn't provide any feature to unlock. Department people also told me that even the people working in Siemens don't know how to do it. Being a software engineer I know that any thing can be reverse engineered. So I took up the challenge. How did I unlocked the blocks? The first thing I'd done was searched about this software at Google and read about what is this software all about. Aft
49 comments
Read more

App: Calculate your job experience or age in years

Usually, all of those who works have to put years of experience on their resume or curriculum vitae. But 90% people put it wrong when they convert their experience in years only. Although they know the exact number of months and years but the conversion, they do is wrong. This happens because there are 12 months while the digit after decimal would be 0-9, i.e., 10 digits. Which means that we have to represent the number of months in terms of year. So here I have provided a small gadget to calculate it. Just put the date when you had started working in the From Date field and put current date in the To Date field. You can also calculate your age as well with this tool by putting your date of birth in the From Date field and put current date in the To Date field. As an alternative, you can use the hassle-free and simple to use  Date Differentiator  micro webapp. Bookmark it so you may easily access it later.
Post a Comment
Read more

How to convert JIRA story into sub-task or defect?

Many times we entangled in the situation where we have made a  story  in JIRA but later on realised that it should have to be  defect  or in other case,  sub-task  of another  story . Story → Sub-task So the workaround for converting the story into defect is given below: Open your  story Click on  more  option Click on the  Convert to sub-task  option in the dropdown You would be asked to choose  Parent  story, so chose relevant story After submit, your  story  gets converted into  sub-task Story → Defect Now if you want the story to be converted into defect, then you should first convert it into sub-task. Thereafter, you can convert that sub-task into defect as given below: Open the  sub-task Click on  more  option Click on the  Convert to issue  option in the dropdown You would be asked to fill up relevant fields required for raising a  defect , fill them up as required After submit, your  sub-task  gets converted into  defect .
Post a Comment
Read more