Static Website Hosting on AWS Using S3, Route 53, ACM, and CloudFront (Terraform)

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In this project, I deployed a static website hosted on Amazon S3, secured with SSL/TLS using AWS Certificate Manager (ACM), and distributed globally with low latency through Amazon CloudFront. The infrastructure was fully provisioned using Terraform, ensuring a reproducible, automated, and scalable deployment process. To make the website accessible via a custom domain, I used Amazon Route 53 for DNS management, routing domain traffic to the CloudFront distribution efficiently and reliably.

⚙️ AWS Services Used

• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
  Used to store and deliver the static website content, such as HTML, CSS, and JS files.

• Amazon CloudFront
  A global content delivery network (CDN) that caches and delivers the S3 content with low latency and high availability.

• AWS Certificate Manager (ACM)
  Provides the SSL/TLS certificate to enable secure HTTPS access via CloudFront.

• Amazon Route 53
  A scalable DNS service used to manage the custom domain and route DNS queries to CloudFront.

• Terraform
  Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool used to automate the provisioning of all AWS resources—ensuring repeatability, version control, and clean teardown if needed.

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📜 Step-by-Step Guide

1. Create S3 Bucket and Upload Website Files

• Create an S3 bucket to store the website files (HTML, CSS, images, etc.).

• Set the bucket name to match your domain (e.g., biswas.me).

• Upload files like index.html, error.html, styles.css, etc.

Configure Access:

• Set aws_s3_bucket_public_access_block with all attributes as false to allow public access:

• Add a aws_s3_bucket_policy to allow public read access:

• Configure aws_s3_bucket_website_configuration with index.html and error.html.

• Visit the S3 website endpoint URL to verify that the site is accessible.

2. Create Route 53 Hosted Zone

• Create a hosted zone for your domain (eg: biswas.me).

• Get the name servers from Route 53 and update them in your domain registrar’s DNS settings.

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3. Request SSL Certificate (AWS Certificate Manager)

• Use ACM to request a public certificate.

• Add two domain names:

  • custom_domain_1

  • custom_domain_2

• Create DNS validation records in Route 53.

  

• Wait for the certificate status to be ISSUED.

4. CloudFront Configuration

• Create a CloudFront distribution:

  • Set origin to S3 bucket website endpoint (HTTP only, port 80).

  • Enable redirect HTTP to HTTPS for the viewer protocol policy.

  • Do not enable WAF (Web Application Firewall).

  • Add alternate domain names (CNAME): biswanathsah.me, www.biswanathsah.me

  • Attach the custom SSL certificate from ACM.

  • Set default root object: index.html

5. Final Step: Add Route 53 Alias Records for CloudFront

• Create two A type alias records pointing to the CloudFront distribution:

✅ Once complete, visiting domain url that will serve your static site securely over HTTPS using CloudFront CDN.

💡 Wrapping Up

By combining AWS services like S3, CloudFront, ACM, and Route 53 with the power of Terraform, we successfully built a secure, scalable, and globally accessible static website infrastructure. This project not only demonstrates the effectiveness of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for automating deployments, but also highlights best practices in cloud architecture - including HTTPS encryption, custom domain integration, and CDN-based performance optimization.