AWS Debugging Nightmare: How a Missing Host Header Led to Chaos and the Quick Solution

The Problem: Lambda@Edge’s Response Size Limit Strikes

Our team was racing against the clock to fix a critical API endpoint that suddenly started failing. The culprit? Lambda@Edge’s 1 MB response payload limit. Our endpoint’s dataset had grown exponentially, and truncating the response wasn’t an option.

The Plan:

1. Offload Large Data to S3 Conditionally: On every API call, check the S3 object’s LastModifiedDate. If it’s older than 6 hours or if the object doesn’t exist, generate and upload a fresh JSON file. If not, do nothing—no redundant writes, no wasted compute.

2. Return Dynamic S3 Object Paths: Modify the Lambda handler to return paths like /data/2023-10-01.json (with date-based filenames) instead of raw data. Clients now fetch directly from S3 via CloudFront.

3. CloudFront to the Rescue: Configure behaviors to route /data/* paths to the S3 bucket, bypassing Lambda’s size limits entirely.

   It seemed foolproof—until it wasn’t.

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The Bug That Defied Logs (and Sanity)

After deploying, our testing immediately failed. CloudFront returned cryptic 403 Access Denied, 404 Not Found errors. No logs explained why. Was it an IAM role misconfiguration? A bucket policy issue? A CORS nightmare? We spent days chasing ghosts:

• Triple-checked bucket permissions ✅

• Rewrote CORS policies 12 times ✅

• Even created custom policy for the CloudFront distribution ✅

Nothing worked.

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The “Aha!” Moment: Headers Are Not Just Metadata

After a week of frustration, we finally inspected the raw CloudFront request objects in Lambda@Edge. That’s when we spotted it:

// The offending header in our Lambda@Edge response:
"headers": {
  "host": [{"key": "Host", "value": "api.ourcompany.com"}], // 😱
  // ...
}

The Mistake:
Request contained our API’s domain in the Host header. But S3 doesn’t care about your API’s URL—it expects its own domain name in the Host header to authenticate requests.

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The 3-Line Fix That Saved the Day

In Lambda@Edge, we added logic to override the Host header dynamically when talking to S3:

exports.handler = async (event) => {
  const request = event.Records[0].cf.request;

  const response = await getSomeRespone(event);

  // Forward to S3 file;
  if (response.forwardToOrigin) {
      request.uri = response.forwardToOrigin;

      // Fix: Override Host header for S3 origins
      if (request.origin?.s3) {
        request.headers['host'] = [{ 
          key: 'Host', 
          value: request.origin.s3.domainName // e.g., "my-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com"
        }];
      }

    return request;
  }

  return response;
};

Why This Works:

• CloudFront origins require precise Host headers for authentication.

• request.origin.s3.domainName dynamically injects the bucket’s endpoint.

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Lessons Learned the Hard Way

1. Headers Matter (a Lot): AWS services treat Host as a security credential, not just metadata.

2. Debugging Tip: Use CloudFront’s Lambda@Edge debug logs to inspect raw request/response objects.

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Pro Tips for AWS Serverless Developers

✅ Test Origin Requests Locally: Use tools like curl to simulate S3 requests with different headers.
✅ Enable Detailed Logging: CloudFront + Lambda@Edge logs are worth the cost during debugging.
✅ Bookmark the Docs: The AWS Origin Header Guide could save you hours.

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Final Thought:
In serverless architectures, the smallest details—like a single header—can ripple into days of chaos. But as we learned, sometimes the biggest fixes come in the smallest code changes.

Have you battled AWS headers before? Share your war stories in the comments! 🛠️