14. Amazon S3: Buckets, Objects, Policies and Presigned URLs
14.4 Hosting a Static Website on S3
HTML, CSS, JS aani images astil (server-side code nahi) tar S3 varun website chalavta yete – server nahi, patching nahi. Ha ekach bucket asa aahe jithe aapan jaanun-bujun public read deto.
BUCKET=ravindra-static-site-nashik
aws s3 mb s3://$BUCKET --region ap-south-1
aws s3 sync ./site s3://$BUCKET/ # index.html, error.html, css/, img/
aws s3 website s3://$BUCKET/ --index-document index.html --error-document error.html
# allow public policies on THIS bucket only (console: Permissions → Block public access → Edit)
aws s3api put-public-access-block --bucket $BUCKET \
--public-access-block-configuration BlockPublicAcls=true,IgnorePublicAcls=true,BlockPublicPolicy=false,RestrictPublicBuckets=false
Public read policy – only GetObject, never ListBucket or PutObject:
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Sid": "PublicReadWebsite",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Principal": "*",
"Action": "s3:GetObject",
"Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::ravindra-static-site-nashik/*"
}]
}
The website endpoint looks like http://ravindra-static-site-nashik.s3-website.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com. Note: the S3 website endpoint is HTTP only. For HTTPS and your own domain, put CloudFront in front of the bucket (with Origin Access Control, so the bucket itself can stay private) and point www.yourdomain.com to CloudFront with a CNAME.
| Option | HTTPS | Bucket public? | Use for |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 website endpoint | No | Yes (read only) | Quick demos, learning |
| CloudFront + OAC | Yes, custom domain | No – only CloudFront can read | Real production static sites |
| Nginx on EC2 (Part 3) | Yes with Certbot | Not applicable | When you also need server-side code |
Ravindra Bagale's Tip
Students accidentally sync .env, backup.zip and the .git folder into the website bucket too – and they become public! Use excludes, like aws s3 sync ./site s3://bucket/ --exclude ".git/*" --exclude "*.env" --exclude "*.zip". After uploading, always check once with aws s3 ls --recursive what has become public.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip – मराठी
Website bucket मध्ये students चुकून .env, backup.zip, .git folder पण sync करतात – आणि ते public होतात! aws s3 sync ./site s3://bucket/ --exclude ".git/*" --exclude "*.env" --exclude "*.zip" असा exclude वापरा. Upload नंतर aws s3 ls --recursive ने एकदा नक्की बघा काय public झालं आहे.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip – हिंदी
Website bucket में students गलती से .env, backup.zip, .git folder भी sync कर देते हैं – और वे public हो जाते हैं! aws s3 sync ./site s3://bucket/ --exclude ".git/*" --exclude "*.env" --exclude "*.zip" जैसा exclude इस्तेमाल करो. Upload के बाद aws s3 ls --recursive से एक बार ज़रूर देखो कि क्या public हुआ है.
Lab
Host a two-page static site (index.html, about.html, error.html) on S3. Open the website endpoint, open a wrong URL to see error.html, then try aws s3 ls s3://<bucket> without credentials (--no-sign-request) and confirm listing is refused while pages still load.