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CloudFront cache and S3 bucket redirect issue

0

Hi,

I am having a redirect issue with CloudFront and S3. The CloudFront distribution points to a S3 bucket created to handle a redirect. There are no assets in the bucket at all, it's just a redirect.

I changed the domain the redirect to point to a new domain but the redirect is still going to the old domain. I tried setting the CloudFront distribution to the default CachingDisabled policy to see if the redirect works but it still is pointing to the old domain.

For a clearer picture: https://example.com is pointed at a CloudFront distribution in Route 53 and that distribution is pointed to an S3 bucket. That S3 bucket's hosting type is a Redirect request. I had changed the redirect from oldexample.com to newexample.com in the bucket.

I know the S3 bucket redirect is working correctly because when I click on the Bucket website endpoint it takes me to the new domain.

When I click on the CloudFront distribution domain name it redirects to the old URL. It's the same origin (the S3 bucket) so I'm not sure why it's not picking up the redirect with the CachingDisabled policy. I switched the policy back to the recommended caching policy in the meantime.

Can someone tell me how I can resolve this? I'm not very familiar with AWS in general so a more detailed step by step suggestion would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Topics
Networking & Content Delivery
Tags
Amazon CloudFrontCaching
Language
English
asked a year ago593 views
2 Answers
0

Not answering the question but it's likely that it is less expensive and faster to use a CloudFront Function to do the redirect: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/example_cloudfront_functions_redirect_based_on_country_section.html

AWS
EXPERT
answered a year ago
  • daminloi
    a year ago

    Thanks for your input.

    I did add a simple redirect function and attached it to the distribution. But I had also added a custom caching policy where I set the TTLs to 60 seconds, so I'm not sure which change (or both) worked.

    I used a simpler function provided in the documentation here:

    https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/functions-tutorial.html

    That said, I would still like to know why the CloudFront distribution remained cached for so long.

0

The issue you're experiencing is likely due to CloudFront caching the redirect response from your S3 bucket. Even though you've changed the redirect in the S3 bucket configuration, CloudFront may still be serving the old redirect from its cache.

To resolve this issue, you can try the following steps:

  1. Create an invalidation in CloudFront: This will clear the cached content for your distribution. In the CloudFront console, select your distribution, go to the "Invalidations" tab, and create a new invalidation with the path "/*" to invalidate all objects.

  2. Ensure your CloudFront distribution is configured correctly:

    • Verify that the origin domain name is set to the S3 website endpoint (e.g., your-bucket-name.s3-website-region.amazonaws.com) rather than the regular S3 bucket endpoint.
    • Make sure the origin protocol policy is set to "HTTP Only" since S3 website endpoints only support HTTP.

  3. Check your cache behavior settings:

    • Set the minimum TTL to 0 to ensure CloudFront checks with the origin more frequently.
    • Consider using the "CachingOptimized" policy instead of "CachingDisabled" to allow some caching while still respecting the origin's cache headers.

  4. Verify S3 bucket configuration:

    • Confirm that the redirect rule in your S3 bucket is correctly set to the new domain.
    • Ensure that the S3 bucket has the correct permissions to allow CloudFront to access it.

  5. Wait for propagation: After making these changes, it may take some time (usually up to 24 hours) for the changes to fully propagate across all CloudFront edge locations.

If the issue persists after trying these steps, you may need to review your CloudFront distribution's logging settings to gather more information about the requests and responses. This can help identify if there are any specific issues with how CloudFront is handling the redirect from S3.

Remember that when using S3 website hosting for redirects, CloudFront caches the redirect status code and the new location. It doesn't follow the redirect itself but returns these values to the viewer. The viewer then makes a new request to the redirected location.

If you continue to face difficulties, consider reaching out to AWS Support for more personalized assistance with your specific configuration.
Sources
Request and response behavior for Amazon S3 origins - Amazon CloudFront
Renewed CloudFront SSL certificate causing 404 errors on previously working S3 bucket deployment | AWS re:Post
Cloudfront cannot access s3 bucket | AWS re:Post

answered a year ago

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