CODEWITHSUNDEEP
amazon-cloudfront
PictureMeAndYou
PictureMeAndYou

Reputation: 533

How to use Cloudfront to protect my files

I have a bunch of images on my S3 which is linked with Cloudfront.

Now I have a web server and I only want users to view the image through my website so I can't just give out links to the image. How do I set that?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 563

Answers (1)

John Rotenstein
John Rotenstein

Reputation: 270074

It appears that your requirement is:

  • Content stored in Amazon S3
  • Content served via Amazon CloudFront
  • Content should be private, but have a way to let specific people view it

This can be accomplished by using Pre-Signed URLs. These are special URLs that only work for a limited period of time.

When your application determines that the user is entitled to view an image, it can generate a Pre-Signed URL that grants access for a limited period of time. Simply use this URL in an <IMG> tag as you would normally.

See:

Since your content in Amazon S3 will be private (so users cannot bypass CloudFront and access it directly), you will also need to grant CloudFront permission to access the content from S3. See: Using an Origin Access Identity to Restrict Access to Your Amazon S3 Content

Another option, instead of creating a pre-signed URL each time, is to use Signed Cookies. However, this doesn't give fine-grained control for access to individual objects -- it's more for granting access to multiple objects, such as a subscription area.

Upvotes: 4

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