Set signed cookies using a canned policy

To set a signed cookie by using a canned policy, complete the following steps. To create the signature, see Create a signature for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy.

To set a signed cookie using a canned policy

1. If you're using .NET or Java to create signed cookies, and if you haven't reformatted the private key for your key pair from the default .pem format to a format compatible with .NET or with Java, do so now. For more information, see Reformat the private key (.NET and Java only).

2. Program your application to send three Set-Cookie headers to approved viewers. You need three Set-Cookie headers because each Set-Cookie header can contain only one name-value pair, and a CloudFront signed cookie requires three name-value pairs. The name-value pairs are: CloudFront-Expires, CloudFront-Signature, and CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id. The values must be present on the viewer before a user makes the first request for a file that you want to control access to.

   Note

   In general, we recommend that you exclude Expires and Max-Age attributes. Excluding the attributes causes the browser to delete the cookie when the user closes the browser, which reduces the possibility of someone getting unauthorized access to your content. For more information, see Prevent misuse of signed cookies.

   The names of cookie attributes are case-sensitive.

   Line breaks are included only to make the attributes more readable.

   Set-Cookie: 
   CloudFront-Expires=date and time in Unix time format (in seconds) and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC); 
   Domain=optional domain name; 
   Path=/optional directory path; 
   Secure; 
   HttpOnly
   
   Set-Cookie: 
   CloudFront-Signature=hashed and signed version of the policy statement; 
   Domain=optional domain name; 
   Path=/optional directory path; 
   Secure; 
   HttpOnly
   
   Set-Cookie: 
   CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id=public key ID for the CloudFront public key whose corresponding private key you're using to generate the signature; 
   Domain=optional domain name; 
   Path=/optional directory path; 
   Secure; 
   HttpOnly

   (Optional) Domain

   The domain name for the requested file. If you don't specify a Domain attribute, the default value is the domain name in the URL, and it applies only to the specified domain name, not to subdomains. If you specify a Domain attribute, it also applies to subdomains. A leading dot in the domain name (for example, Domain=.example.com) is optional. In addition, if you specify a Domain attribute, the domain name in the URL and the value of the Domain attribute must match.

   You can specify the domain name that CloudFront assigned to your distribution, for example, d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net, but you can't specify *.cloudfront.net for the domain name.

   If you want to use an alternate domain name such as example.com in URLs, you must add the alternate domain name to your distribution regardless of whether you specify the Domain attribute. For more information, see Alternate domain names (CNAMEs) in the topic Distribution settings reference.

   (Optional) Path

   The path for the requested file. If you don't specify a Path attribute, the default value is the path in the URL.

   Secure

   Requires that the viewer encrypt cookies before sending a request. We recommend that you send the Set-Cookie header over an HTTPS connection to ensure that the cookie attributes are protected from man-in-the-middle attacks.

   HttpOnly

   Defines how the browser (where supported) interacts with the cookie value. With HttpOnly, the cookie values are inaccessible to JavaScript. This precaution can help mitigate cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. For more information, see Using HTTP cookies.

   CloudFront-Expires

   Specify the expiration date and time in Unix time format (in seconds) and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). For example, January 1, 2013 10:00 am UTC converts to 1357034400 in Unix time format. To use epoch time, use a 32-bit integer for a date that's no later than 2147483647 (January 19th, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC). For information about UTC, see RFC 3339, Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339.

   CloudFront-Signature

   A hashed, signed, and base64-encoded version of a JSON policy statement. For more information, see Create a signature for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy.

   CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id

   The ID for a CloudFront public key, for example, K2JCJMDEHXQW5F. The public key ID tells CloudFront which public key to use to validate the signed URL. CloudFront compares the information in the signature with the information in the policy statement to verify that the URL has not been tampered with.

   This public key must belong to a key group that is a trusted signer in the distribution. For more information, see Specify signers that can create signed URLs and signed cookies.

The following example shows Set-Cookie headers for one signed cookie when you're using the domain name that is associated with your distribution in the URLs for your files:

Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Expires=1426500000; Domain=d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Signature=yXrSIgyQoeE4FBI4eMKF6ho~CA8_; Domain=d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id=K2JCJMDEHXQW5F; Domain=d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly

The following example shows Set-Cookie headers for one signed cookie when you're using the alternate domain name example.org in the URLs for your files:

Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Expires=1426500000; Domain=example.org; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Signature=yXrSIgyQoeE4FBI4eMKF6ho~CA8_; Domain=example.org; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly
Set-Cookie: CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id=K2JCJMDEHXQW5F; Domain=example.org; Path=/images/*; Secure; HttpOnly

If you want to use an alternate domain name such as example.com in URLs, you must add the alternate domain name to your distribution regardless of whether you specify the Domain attribute. For more information, see Alternate domain names (CNAMEs) in the topic Distribution settings reference.

Create a signature for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy

To create the signature for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy, complete the following procedures.

Create a policy statement for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy

When you set a signed cookie that uses a canned policy, the CloudFront-Signature attribute is a hashed and signed version of a policy statement. For signed cookies that use a canned policy, you don't include the policy statement in the Set-Cookie header, as you do for signed cookies that use a custom policy. To create the policy statement, complete the following steps.

To create a policy statement for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy

1. Construct the policy statement using the following JSON format and using UTF-8 character encoding. Include all punctuation and other literal values exactly as specified. For information about the Resource and DateLessThan parameters, see Values that you specify in the policy statement for a canned policy for signed cookies.

   {
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Resource": "base URL or stream name",
               "Condition": {
                   "DateLessThan": {
                       "AWS:EpochTime": ending date and time in Unix time format and UTC
                   }
               }
           }
       ]
   }

2. Remove all empty spaces (including tabs and newline characters) from the policy statement. You might have to include escape characters in the string in application code.

Values that you specify in the policy statement for a canned policy for signed cookies

When you create a policy statement for a canned policy, you specify the following values:

Resource

The base URL including your query strings, if any, for example:

https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/images/horizon.jpg?size=large&license=yes

You can specify only one value for Resource.

Note the following:

• Protocol – The value must begin with http:// or https://.

• Query string parameters – If you have no query string parameters, omit the question mark.

• Alternate domain names – If you specify an alternate domain name (CNAME) in the URL, you must specify the alternate domain name when referencing the file in your webpage or application. Do not specify the Amazon S3 URL for the file.

DateLessThan

The expiration date and time for the URL in Unix time format (in seconds) and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Do not enclose the value in quotation marks.

For example, March 16, 2015 10:00 am UTC converts to 1426500000 in Unix time format.

This value must match the value of the CloudFront-Expires attribute in the Set-Cookie header. Do not enclose the value in quotation marks.

For more information, see When CloudFront checks expiration date and time in a signed cookie.

Example policy statement for a canned policy

When you use the following example policy statement in a signed cookie, a user can access the file https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/horizon.jpg until March 16, 2015 10:00 am UTC:

{
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Resource": "https://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/horizon.jpg?size=large&license=yes",
            "Condition": {
                "DateLessThan": {
                    "AWS:EpochTime": 1426500000
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Sign the policy statement to create a signature for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy

To create the value for the CloudFront-Signature attribute in a Set-Cookie header, you hash and sign the policy statement that you created in To create a policy statement for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy.

For additional information and examples of how to hash, sign, and encode the policy statement, see the following topics:

• Linux commands and OpenSSL for base64 encoding and encryption

• Code examples for creating a signature for a signed URL

To create a signature for a signed cookie using a canned policy

1. Use the SHA-1 hash function and RSA to hash and sign the policy statement that you created in the procedure To create a policy statement for a signed cookie that uses a canned policy. Use the version of the policy statement that no longer includes empty spaces.

   For the private key that is required by the hash function, use a private key whose public key is in an active trusted key group for the distribution.

   Note

   The method that you use to hash and sign the policy statement depends on your programming language and platform. For sample code, see Code examples for creating a signature for a signed URL.

2. Remove empty spaces (including tabs and newline characters) from the hashed and signed string.

3. Base64-encode the string using MIME base64 encoding. For more information, see Section 6.8, Base64 Content-Transfer-Encoding in RFC 2045, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies.

4. Replace characters that are invalid in a URL query string with characters that are valid. The following table lists invalid and valid characters.

   Replace these invalid characters	With these valid characters
   +	- (hyphen)
   =	_ (underscore)
   /	~ (tilde)

5. Include the resulting value in the Set-Cookie header for the CloudFront-Signature name-value pair. Then return to To set a signed cookie using a canned policy add the Set-Cookie header for CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id.