Create a distribution

This topic explains how to use the CloudFront console to create a distribution.

Overview

1. Create one or more Amazon S3 buckets, or configure HTTP servers as your origin servers. An origin is the location where you store the original version of your content. When CloudFront gets a request for your files, it goes to the origin to get the files that it distributes at edge locations. You can use any combination of Amazon S3 buckets and HTTP servers as your origin servers.

   • If you use Amazon S3, the name of your bucket must be all lowercase and cannot contain spaces.

   • If you use an Amazon EC2 server or another custom origin, review Use Amazon EC2 (or another custom origin).

   • For the current maximum number of origins that you can create for a distribution, or to request a higher quota, see General quotas on distributions.

2. Upload your content to your origin servers. You make your objects publicly readable, or you can use CloudFront signed URLs to restrict access to your content.

   Important

   You are responsible for ensuring the security of your origin server. You must ensure that CloudFront has permission to access the server and that the security settings safeguard your content.

3. Create your CloudFront distribution:

   • For a detailed procedure that creates a distribution in the CloudFront console, see Create a CloudFront distribution in the console.

   • For information about creating a distribution using the CloudFront API, see CreateDistribution in the Amazon CloudFront API Reference.

4. (Optional) If you use the CloudFront console to create your distribution, create more cache behaviors or origins for the distribution. For more information about behaviors and origins, see To update a multi-tenant distribution.

5. Test your distribution. For more information about testing, see Test a distribution.

6. Develop your website or application to access your content using the domain name that CloudFront returned after you created your distribution in Step 3. For example, if CloudFront returns d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net as the domain name for your distribution, the URL for the file image.jpg in an Amazon S3 bucket or in the root directory on an HTTP server is https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/image.jpg.

   If you specified one or more alternate domain names (CNAMEs) when you created your distribution, you can use your own domain name. In that case, the URL for image.jpg might be https://www.example.com/image.jpg.

   Note the following:

   • If you want to use signed URLs to restrict access to your content, see Serve private content with signed URLs and signed cookies.

   • If you want to serve compressed content, see Serve compressed files.

   • For information about CloudFront request and response behavior for Amazon S3 and custom origins, see Request and response behavior.

Topics

• Create a CloudFront distribution in the console

• Values that CloudFront displays in the console

• Additional links

• Add a domain to your CloudFront standard distribution

Create a CloudFront distribution in the console

When you create a distribution, CloudFront configures your distribution settings for you, based on your content origin type. For more details about the preconfigured settings, see Preconfigured distribution settings reference. You can also create multi-tenant distributions with settings that can be reused across multiple distribution tenants. For more information, see Understand how multi-tenant distributions work. Alternatively, you can manually configure your own distribution settings.

Multi-tenant

To create a multi-tenant distribution

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/v4/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Distributions, then choose Create distribution.

3. Choose Multi-tenant architecture, Next.

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

5. (Optional) For Wildcard certificate, choose the AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) certificate that will cover all subdomains under the root domain, such as *.example.com. The certificate must be in the US East (N. Virginia) Region.

6. Choose Next.

7. On the Specify origin page, select the origin type that CloudFront will get your content from. CloudFront will use the recommended settings for that origin type for your multi-tenant distribution. For more information about the recommended settings, see Preconfigured distribution settings reference.

8. For Origin, under the origin type that you selected, choose or enter the origin to use.

9. For Origin path, enter the forward slash (/) character, followed by the origin path.

10. (Optional) To add a parameter, choose Insert parameter for either the origin domain name or origin path. You can enter up to two parameters for each field.

    1. Choose Create new parameter.

    2. On the Create new parameter dialog box, for Parameter name, enter a unique name for the parameter and, optionally, a description.

    3. For Required parameter, select the checkbox to make this parameter value required at the distribution tenant level. If it's not required, enter a Default value that the distribution tenant will inherit.

    4. Choose Create parameter. This parameter appears in the corresponding field.

11. For Options, choose one of the following options:

    • Use recommended origin settings – Use the default recommended cache and origin settings for the origin type that you selected.

    • Customize origin settings – Customize the cache and origin settings. If you choose this option, specify your own values that appear.

12. Choose Next.

13. On the Enable security protections page, choose whether to enable AWS WAF security protections. You can customize the web ACL for specific distribution tenants later. For more information, see Enable AWS WAF for a new distribution.

14. Choose Next, Create distribution.

15. On the Distributions page, your multi-tenant distribution appears in the list of resources. You can choose the All distributions dropdown to filter by standard distribution or multi-tenant distribution. You can also choose the Type column to filter by standard or multi-tenant distribution.

By default, CloudFront creates a connection group for you. The connection group controls how viewer requests for content connect to CloudFront. You can customize some routing settings in the connection group. For more information, see Understand how multi-tenant distributions work.

You can create additional distribution tenants using the multi-tenant distribution as a template.

To create a distribution tenant

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/v4/home.

2. In the navigation pane, do one of the following:

   • Choose Distributions, choose a multi-tenant distribution, and then choose Create tenant.

   • Choose Distribution tenants and then choose Create tenant.

3. For Distribution tenant name, enter the name. The name must be unique in your AWS account and can't be changed after you create it.

4. For Template distribution, choose a multi-tenant distribution ID from the list.

5. For Manage tags, add up to 50 key-value pairs for the distribution tenant. For more information, see Tag a distribution.

6. Choose Next.

7. On the Add domains page, for Certificate, choose if you want a Custom TLS certificate for your distribution tenant. The certificate verifies whether you're authorized to use the domain name. The certificate must exist in the US East (N. Virginia) Region.

8. For Domains, enter your domain name.

   Note

   If you entered a domain name that isn't covered by a certificate, you will need to verify that you own the domain. You can still create the distribution tenant for now and verify domain ownership later. For more information, see Request certificates for your CloudFront distribution tenant.

9. Choose Next.

10. On the Define parameters page, the parameters that you specified in the multi-tenant distribution appear. For required parameters, enter a value next to the parameter name and save your changes.

11. To add another parameter, choose Add parameter and enter a name and value.

12. Choose Next.

13. (Optional) For Security customization, if you choose to Override distribution settings, select the option for your use case.

14. (Optional) For Geographic restrictions customization, if you choose to Override distribution settings, select the appropriate Restriction type and Countries for the distribution tenant. For more information, see Restrict the geographic distribution of your content.

15. Choose Next.

16. Choose Create distribution tenant.

You can find all your distribution tenants on the Distribution tenants page. You can filter by the following:

Association

• Distribution ID

• Certificate ID

• Connection group ID

• Web ACL ID

Properties

• Name

• Domain

You can edit your distribution tenants to customize specific settings. For more information, see Distribution tenant customizations.

Standard

To create a standard distribution

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/v4/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Distributions, then 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. (Optional) For Domain setup, enter a domain that's already registered with Route 53 in your AWS account, or register a new domain. Complete the setup steps.

   • If your domain uses a DNS provider other than Route 53, you can still add the domain, but you'll need to do so after creating the distribution. Skip the domain setup for now to proceed with distribution creation. You must manually configure the domain and TLS certificate later. For more information, see Add a domain to your CloudFront standard distribution.

6. Choose Next.

7. On the Specify origin page, select the origin type that CloudFront will get your content from. CloudFront will use the recommended settings for that origin type for your distribution. For more information about the recommended settings, see Preconfigured distribution settings reference.

8. For Origin, choose or enter your origin.

9. For Settings, choose one of the following options:

   • Use recommended origin settings – Use the default recommended cache and origin settings for the origin type that you selected.

   • Customize origin settings – Customize the cache and origin settings. If you choose this option, specify your own values.

10. Choose Next.

11. On the Enable security protections page, choose whether to enable AWS WAF security protections.

12. Choose Next.

13. (Optional) If you are using Route 53 for your domain, you will see the TLS certificate page. If CloudFront can't find an existing AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) certificate for your domain in your AWS account in the us-east-1 AWS Region, you can choose to automatically create a certificate or manually create it. After the certificate is created, choose Next.

14. Review your distribution details and choose Create distribution.

15. After CloudFront creates your distribution, the value of the Status column for your distribution will change from Deploying to the date and time that the distribution is deployed.

    The domain name that CloudFront assigns to your distribution appears in the list of distributions. (It also appears on the General tab for a selected distribution.)

    Tip

    You can use an alternate domain name, instead of the name assigned to you by CloudFront, by following the steps in Use custom URLs by adding alternate domain names (CNAMEs).

16. When your distribution is deployed, confirm that you can access your content by using your new CloudFront URL (d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net) or the CNAME. For more information, see Test a distribution.

17. Make sure to update your DNS records to point to CloudFront when you're ready to send traffic to your distribution. For more information, see Point domains to CloudFront (standard distribution).

Values that CloudFront displays in the console

When you create a new distribution or update an existing distribution, CloudFront displays the following information in the CloudFront console.

Note

Active trusted signers, the AWS accounts that have an active CloudFront key pair and can be used to create valid signed URLs, are currently not visible in the CloudFront console.

Distribution ID

When you perform an action on a distribution using the CloudFront API, you use the distribution ID to specify which distribution to use, for example, EDFDVBD6EXAMPLE. You can't change a distribution's distribution ID.

Deploying and status

When you deploy a distribution, you see the Deploying status under the Last modified column. Wait for the distribution to finish deploying and make sure the Status column shows Enabled. For more information, see Distribution state.

Last modified

The date and time that the distribution was last modified, using ISO 8601 format, for example, 2012-05-19T19:37:58Z. For more information, see https://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime.

Domain name

You use the distribution's domain name in the links to your objects. For example, if your distribution's domain name is d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net, the link to /images/image.jpg would be https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/images/image.jpg. You can't change the CloudFront domain name for your distribution. For more information about CloudFront URLs for links to your objects, see Customize the URL format for files in CloudFront.

If you specified one or more alternate domain names (CNAMEs), you can use your own domain names for links to your objects instead of using the CloudFront domain name. For more information about CNAMEs, see Alternate domain names (CNAMEs).

Note

CloudFront domain names are unique. Your distribution's domain name was never used for a previous distribution and will never be reused for another distribution in the future.

Additional links

For more information about creating a distribution, see the following links.

• To learn how to create a distribution that uses an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket origin with origin access control (OAC), see Get started with a CloudFront standard distribution.

• For information about using the CloudFront APIs to create a distribution, see CreateDistribution in the Amazon CloudFront API Reference.

• For information about updating a distribution (for example, to add cache behaviors to standard distributions, or to customize distribution tenants), see Update a distribution.

• To see the current maximum number of distributions that you can create for each AWS account, or to request a higher quota (formerly known as limit), see General quotas on distributions.