(Optional) configuring a webpage redirect

If your Amazon S3 bucket is configured for website hosting, you can configure a webpage redirect. You have the following options for configuring a redirect.

Setting an object redirect using the Amazon S3 console

You can redirect requests for an object to another object or URL by setting the website redirect location in the metadata of the object. You set the redirect by adding the x-amz-website-redirect-location property to the object metadata. On the Amazon S3 console, you set the Website Redirect Location in the metadata of the object. If you use the Amazon S3 API, you set x-amz-website-redirect-location. The website then interprets the object as a 301 redirect.

To redirect a request to another object, you set the redirect location to the key of the target object. To redirect a request to an external URL, you set the redirect location to the URL that you want. For more information about object metadata, see System-defined object metadata.

When you set a page redirect, you can either keep or delete the source object content. For example, if you have a page1.html object in your bucket, you can redirect any requests for this page to another object, page2.html. You have two options:

• Keep the content of the page1.html object and redirect page requests.

• Delete the content of page1.html and upload a zero-byte object named page1.html to replace the existing object and redirect page requests.

To redirect requests for an object

1. Open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/.

2. Choose the name of the bucket that you have configured as a static website (for example, example.com).

3. On the Overview tab for your bucket, choose the object that you want to create a redirect for.

4. Choose Properties.

5. Choose Metadata.

6. Choose + Add Metadata.

7. In Key, choose Website-Redirect-Location.

8. In Value, enter the key name of the object that you want to redirect to, for example, /page2.html.

   For another object in the same bucket, the / prefix in the value is required. You can also set the value to an external URL, for example, http://www.example.com.

9. Choose Save.

Setting an object redirect using the REST API

The following Amazon S3 API actions support the x-amz-website-redirect-location header in the request. Amazon S3 stores the header value in the object metadata as x-amz-website-redirect-location.

• PUT Object

• Initiate Multipart Upload

• POST Object

• PUT Object - Copy

A bucket configured for website hosting has both the website endpoint and the REST endpoint. A request for a page that is configured as a 301 redirect has the following possible outcomes, depending on the endpoint of the request:

• Region-specific website endpoint – Amazon S3 redirects the page request according to the value of the x-amz-website-redirect-location property.

• REST endpoint – Amazon S3 doesn't redirect the page request. It returns the requested object.

For more information about the endpoints, see Key differences between a website endpoint and a REST API endpoint.

When setting a page redirect, you can either keep or delete the object content. For example, suppose that you have a page1.html object in your bucket.

• To keep the content of page1.html and only redirect page requests, you can submit a PUT Object - Copy request to create a new page1.html object that uses the existing page1.html object as the source. In your request, you set the x-amz-website-redirect-location header. When the request is complete, you have the original page with its content unchanged, but Amazon S3 redirects any requests for the page to the redirect location that you specify.

• To delete the content of the page1.html object and redirect requests for the page, you can send a PUT Object request to upload a zero-byte object that has the same object key: page1.html. In the PUT request, you set x-amz-website-redirect-location for page1.html to the new object. When the request is complete, page1.html has no content, and requests are redirected to the location that is specified by x-amz-website-redirect-location.

When you retrieve the object using the GET Object action, along with other object metadata, Amazon S3 returns the x-amz-website-redirect-location header in the response.

Redirecting requests for a bucket's website endpoint to another host

You can redirect all requests for a website endpoint for a bucket to another host. If you redirect all requests, any request made to the website endpoint is redirected to the specified host name.

For example, if your root domain is example.com, and you want to serve requests for both http://example.com and http://www.example.com, you can create two buckets named example.com and www.example.com. Then, maintain the content in the example.com bucket, and configure the other www.example.com bucket to redirect all requests to the example.com bucket. For more information, see Configuring a Static Website Using a Custom Domain Name.

To redirect requests for a bucket website endpoint

1. Open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/.

2. Choose the name of the bucket that you have configured as a static website (for example, example.com).

3. Choose Properties.

4. Choose Static website hosting.

5. Choose Redirect requests.

6. In the Target bucket or domain box, enter the bucket or domain that you want to redirect to.

   For example, if you are redirecting to a root domain address, you would enter example.com.

7. In the Protocol box, enter the protocol for the redirected requests (http or https).

   If you do not specify a protocol, the protocol of the original request is used.

8. Choose Save.

Configuring advanced conditional redirects

Using advanced redirection rules, you can route requests conditionally according to specific object key names, prefixes in the request, or response codes. For example, suppose that you delete or rename an object in your bucket. You can add a routing rule that redirects the request to another object. If you want to make a folder unavailable, you can add a routing rule to redirect the request to another webpage. You can also add a routing rule to handle error conditions by routing requests that return the error to another domain when the error is processed.

When configuring a bucket for website hosting, you have the option of specifying advanced redirection rules. Amazon S3 has a limitation of 50 routing rules per website configuration. If you require more than 50 routing rules, you can use object redirect. For more information, see Setting an object redirect using the Amazon S3 console.

To configure redirection rules for a static website

To add redirection rules for a bucket that already has static website hosting enabled, follow these steps.

1. Open the Amazon S3 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/.

2. In the Buckets list, choose the name of a bucket that you have configured as a static website.

3. Choose Properties.

4. Choose Static website hosting.

5. In Redirection rules, enter your redirection rules.

   You describe the rules using XML. For general syntax and examples for specifying redirection rules, see Syntax for specifying routing rules. Amazon S3 has a limitation of 50 routing rules per website configuration. If you require more than 50 routing rules, you can use object redirect. For more information, see Setting an object redirect using the Amazon S3 console.

6. Choose Save.

Syntax for specifying routing rules

The following is general syntax for defining the routing rules in a website configuration.

<RoutingRules> =
    <RoutingRules>
         <RoutingRule>...</RoutingRule>
         [<RoutingRule>...</RoutingRule>   
         ...]
    </RoutingRules>

<RoutingRule> =
   <RoutingRule>
      [ <Condition>...</Condition> ]
      <Redirect>...</Redirect>
   </RoutingRule>

<Condition> =
   <Condition> 
      [ <KeyPrefixEquals>...</KeyPrefixEquals> ]
      [ <HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals>...</HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals> ]
   </Condition>
    Note: <Condition> must have at least one child element.

<Redirect> =
   <Redirect> 
      [ <HostName>...</HostName> ]
      [ <Protocol>...</Protocol> ]
      [ <ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>...</ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>  ]
      [ <ReplaceKeyWith>...</ReplaceKeyWith> ]
      [ <HttpRedirectCode>...</HttpRedirectCode> ]
   </Redirect>
    Note: <Redirect> must have at least one child element. 
           Also, you can have either ReplaceKeyPrefix with or ReplaceKeyWith, 
           but not both.

The following table describes the elements in the routing rule.

Name	Description
RoutingRules	Container for a collection of RoutingRule elements.
RoutingRule	A rule that identifies a condition and the redirect that is applied when the condition is met. Condition: A RoutingRules container must contain at least one routing rule.
Condition	Container for describing a condition that must be met for the specified redirect to be applied. If the routing rule does not include a condition, the rule is applied to all requests.
KeyPrefixEquals	The prefix of the object key name from which requests are redirected. KeyPrefixEquals is required if HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals is not specified. If both KeyPrefixEquals and HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals are specified, both must be true for the condition to be met.
HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals	The HTTP error code that must match for the redirect to apply. If an error occurs, and if the error code meets this value, then the specified redirect applies. HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals is required if KeyPrefixEquals is not specified. If both KeyPrefixEquals and HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals are specified, both must be true for the condition to be met.
Redirect	Container element that provides instructions for redirecting the request. You can redirect requests to another host or another page, or you can specify another protocol to use. A RoutingRule must have a Redirect element. A Redirect element must contain at least one of the following sibling elements: Protocol, HostName, ReplaceKeyPrefixWith, ReplaceKeyWith, or HttpRedirectCode.
Protocol	The protocol, http or https, to be used in the Location header that is returned in the response. If one of its siblings is supplied, Protocol is not required.
HostName	The hostname to be used in the Location header that is returned in the response. If one of its siblings is supplied, HostName is not required.
ReplaceKeyPrefixWith	The prefix of the object key name that replaces the value of KeyPrefixEquals in the redirect request. If one of its siblings is supplied, ReplaceKeyPrefixWith is not required. It can be supplied only if ReplaceKeyWith is not supplied.
ReplaceKeyWith	The object key to be used in the Location header that is returned in the response. If one of its siblings is supplied, ReplaceKeyWith is not required. It can be supplied only if ReplaceKeyPrefixWith is not supplied.
HttpRedirectCode	The HTTP redirect code to be used in the Location header that is returned in the response. If one of its siblings is supplied, HttpRedirectCode is not required.

Examples

The following examples explain common redirection tasks:

Example 1: Redirect after renaming a key prefix

Suppose that your bucket contains the following objects:

• index.html

• docs/article1.html

• docs/article2.html

You decide to rename the folder from docs/ to documents/. After you make this change, you need to redirect requests for prefix docs/ to documents/. For example, request for docs/article1.html will be redirected to documents/article1.html.

In this case, you add the following routing rule to the website configuration.

  <RoutingRules>
    <RoutingRule>
    <Condition>
      <KeyPrefixEquals>docs/</KeyPrefixEquals>
    </Condition>
    <Redirect>
      <ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>documents/</ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>
    </Redirect>
    </RoutingRule>
  </RoutingRules>

Example 2: Redirect requests for a deleted folder to a page

Suppose that you delete the images/ folder (that is, you delete all objects with the key prefix images/). You can add a routing rule that redirects requests for any object with the key prefix images/ to a page named folderdeleted.html.

  <RoutingRules>
    <RoutingRule>
    <Condition>
       <KeyPrefixEquals>images/</KeyPrefixEquals>
    </Condition>
    <Redirect>
      <ReplaceKeyWith>folderdeleted.html</ReplaceKeyWith>
    </Redirect>
    </RoutingRule>
  </RoutingRules>

Example 3: Redirect for an HTTP error

Suppose that when a requested object is not found, you want to redirect requests to an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance. Add a redirection rule so that when an HTTP status code 404 (Not Found) is returned, the site visitor is redirected to an Amazon EC2 instance that handles the request.

The following example also inserts the object key prefix report-404/ in the redirect. For example, if you request a page ExamplePage.html and it results in an HTTP 404 error, the request is redirected to a page report-404/ExamplePage.html on the specified Amazon EC2 instance. If there is no routing rule and the HTTP error 404 occurs, the error document that is specified in the configuration is returned.

  <RoutingRules>
    <RoutingRule>
    <Condition>
      <HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals>404</HttpErrorCodeReturnedEquals >
    </Condition>
    <Redirect>
      <HostName>ec2-11-22-333-44.compute-1.amazonaws.com</HostName>
      <ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>report-404/</ReplaceKeyPrefixWith>
    </Redirect>
    </RoutingRule>
  </RoutingRules>