Cloud Confusing
Explaining hosting, AWS, Wordpress, static sites, and all manner of cloud solutions.
How To Host a Static Web Site on AWS S3 For Almost Free
Amazon Web Services is an intimidating thing. After all, some of the largest, most active websites in the world are hosted there. But that doesn’t mean hosting a website there needs to be difficult. In fact, as AWS has matured over time and now it’s at the point where anyone with a minimum level of technical understanding can host a site using AWS.
Sal September 16th, 2019
Posted In: AWS
Tags: Amazon S3, AWS, Hosting, Route 53, Static Website
An Abbreviated Guide to S3 Redirection Rules
If you are looking for an explainer on S3 redirection rules, you are going to have a tough time finding a good one. While information on redirection rules is available from all over, no one source (including Amazon) is even close to complete. Then outcomes don’t always match exceptions. Welcome to cloud confusion!
This guide should help with some of your S3 redirection questions. At the very least it’ll cover the major concepts and get you on your way to having a static web site with properly working 301s, 302s and other such options.
Sal September 10th, 2019
Posted In: AWS
Tags: Hosting, Redirection Rules, Routing, S3
Great Alternatives to AWS S3 Static Site Hosting
Amazon’s S3 is a great tool for hosting static sites for nearly free (and often times free). Setting up a website in S3 takes just a few minutes, and once it’s there it’s secure, scalable, and affordable. That said, it’s not the tool for everyone — like AWS, S3 has many quirks and it has a real learning curve. Also AWS support is far from free and if you want to do anything non-standard, like URL redirects, there can be many headaches. So here are some of the best alternatives to S3 static site hosting for every user, need, and budget.
Sal May 2nd, 2018
Posted In: AWS
Tags: Alternatives To, Hosting, S3, Static Website
How to Redirect to HTTPS Using CloudFront
If you have followed CloudConfusing’s previous guides on hosting a website on S3 and then adding HTTPS to that site, forcing HTTPS is surprisingly easy. The whole process will take about two minutes per site and involves no risk factors, assuming your HTTPS setup is already functioning properly.
Sal April 28th, 2018
Posted In: AWS
Tags: CloudFront, Hosting, HSTS, HTTPS, Lambda, Lambda@Edge
Amazon S3 Website vs REST API Endpoints
Getting to know the S3 endpoints has been one of the worst parts of S3 hosting. In fact, it’s been one of the worst parts of all of AWS since I started my cloud hosting journey years ago. Understanding the Amazon Web Services S3 Website and REST API endpoints has been endlessly confusing and has caused me hours of frustration. Now I have somewhat of handle on it and would like to relay my distilled learnings.
Sal December 24th, 2017
Posted In: AWS
Amazon S3 Hosting and Route 53 DNS – Let the Confusion Begin
In my previous article about hosting a static website on S3, I realize that I may have rushed past the section on DNS. The AWS Static Site Quickstart tool does most of what you need, but upon further review, I can say that it doesn’t do everything and it doesn’t do DNS particularly well. So let’s revisit Route 53 and run through some of what I’ve managed to piece together.
Sal December 18th, 2017
Posted In: AWS
Tags: Amazon S3, DNS, Hosted Zone, Hosting, Static Website
How to Add HTTPS to an S3 Static Site
So you setup build a static website hosted on Amazon S3 and you gave it a custom domain name. What’s next? HTTPS of course! Here’s a guide on how to do it in about 5 minutes. AWS makes SSL both free and easy, but it can be a little confusing the first time around.
Sal December 7th, 2017
Posted In: AWS
Tags: AWS, Certificate Manager, CloudFront, Hosting, HTTPS, Route 53, Static Website