Set up DNS based URL forwarding in Amazon Route53

Question

I m trying to setup forwarding in Amazon Route53   My last DNS service  Nettica  allowed me to route requests to  aws example com  to  https   myaccount signin aws amazon com console     Is this functionality supported by Route53   How does Nettica achieve this   Does it insert a special A  CNAME  PTR  or TXT record s

User · Answer

I was able to use nginx to handle the 301 redirect to the aws signin page.

Go to your nginx conf folder (in my case it's /etc/nginx/sites-available in which I create a symlink to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled for the enabled conf files).

Then add a redirect path

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name aws.example.com;
  return 301 https://myaccount.signin.aws.amazon.com/console;
}

If you are using nginx, you will most likely have additional server blocks (virtualhosts in apache terminology) to handle your zone apex (example.com) or however you have it setup. Make sure that you have one of them set to be your default server.

server {
  listen 80 default_server;
  server_name example.com;
  # rest of config ...
}

In Route 53, add an A record for aws.example.com and set the value to the same IP used for your zone apex.

User · Answer

Update  While my original answer below is still valid and might be helpful to understand the cause for DNS based URL forwarding not being available via Amazon Route 53 out of the box  I highly recommend checking out Vivek M  Chawla s utterly smart indirect solution via the meanwhile introduced Amazon S3 Support for Website Redirects and achieving a self contained server less and thus free solution within AWS only like so    Implementing an automated solution to generate such redirects is left as an exercise for the reader  but please pay tribute to Vivek s epic answer by publishing your solution        Original Answer  Nettica must be running a custom redirection solution for this  here is the problem   You could create a CNAME alias like aws example com for myaccount signin aws amazon com  however  DNS provides no official support for aliasing a subdirectory like console in this example    It s a pity that AWS doesn t appear to simply do this by default when hitting https   myaccount signin aws amazon com   I just tried   because it would solve you problem right away and make a lot of sense in the first place  besides  it should be pretty easy to configure on their end    For that reason a few DNS providers have apparently implemented a custom solution to allow redirects to subdirectories  I venture the guess that they are basically facilitating a CNAME alias for a domain of their own and are redirecting again from there to the final destination via an immediate HTTP 3xx Redirection   So to achieve the same result  you d need to have a HTTP service running performing these redirects  which is not the simple solution one would hope for of course  Maybe Hopefully someone can come up with a smarter approach still though

User · Answer

I was running into the exact same problem that Saurav described  but I really needed to find a solution that did not require anything other than Route 53 and S3   I created a how-to guide for my blog detailing what I did     Here is what I came up with       Objective  Using only the tools available in Amazon S3 and Amazon Route 53  create a URL Redirect that automatically forwards http   url-redirect-example vivekmchawla com to the AWS Console sign-in page aliased to  MyAccount   located at https   myaccount signin aws amazon com console     This guide will teach you set up URL forwarding to any URL  not just ones from Amazon  You will learn how to set up forwarding to specific folders  like   console  in my example   and how to change the protocol of the redirect from HTTP to HTTPS  or vice versa      Step One  Create Your S3 Bucket    Open the S3 management console and click  Create Bucket       Step Two  Name Your S3 Bucket     Choose a Bucket Name  This step is really important  You must name the bucket EXACTLY the same as the URL you want to set up for forwarding  For this guide  I ll use the name  url-redirect-example vivekmchawla com     Select whatever region works best for you  If you don t know  keep the default    Don t worry about setting up logging  Just click the  Create  button when you re ready        Step 3  Enable Static Website Hosting and Specify Routing Rules     In the properties window  open the settings for  Static Website Hosting   Select the option to  Enable website hosting   Enter a value for the  Index Document   This object  document  will never be served by S3  and you never have to upload it  Just use any name you want  Open the settings for  Edit Redirection Rules   Paste the following XML snippet in it s entirety    lt RoutingRules gt     lt RoutingRule gt       lt Redirect gt         lt Protocol gt https lt  Protocol gt         lt HostName gt myaccount signin aws amazon com lt  HostName gt         lt ReplaceKeyPrefixWith gt console  lt  ReplaceKeyPrefixWith gt         lt HttpRedirectCode gt 301 lt  HttpRedirectCode gt       lt  Redirect gt     lt  RoutingRule gt   lt  RoutingRules gt     If you re curious about what the above XML is doing  visit the AWM Documentation for  Syntax for Specifying Routing Rules   A bonus technique  not covered here  is forwarding to specific pages at the destination host  for example http   redirect-destination com console special-page html  Read about the  lt ReplaceKeyWith gt  element if you need this functionality     Step 4  Make Note of Your Redirect Bucket s  Endpoint     Make note of the Static Website Hosting  endpoint  that Amazon automatically created for this bucket  You ll need this for later  so highlight the entire URL  then copy and paste it to notepad   CAUTION  At this point you can actually click this link to check to see if your Redirection Rules were entered correctly  but be careful  Here s why     Let s say you entered the wrong value inside the  lt Hostname gt  tags in your Redirection Rules  Maybe you accidentally typed myaccount amazon com  instead of myaccount signin aws amazon com  If you click the link to test the Endpoint URL  AWS will happily redirect your browser to the wrong address   After noticing your mistake  you will probably edit the  lt Hostname gt  in your Redirection Rules to fix the error  Unfortunately  when you try to click the link again  you ll most likely end up being redirected back to the wrong address  Even though you fixed the  lt Hostname gt  entry  your browser is caching the previous  incorrect   entry  This happens because we re using an HTTP 301  permanent  redirect  which browsers like Chrome and Firefox will cache by default   If you copy and paste the Endpoint URL to a different browser  or clear the cache in your current one   you ll get another chance to see if your updated  lt Hostname gt  entry is finally the correct one   To be safe  if you want to test your Endpoint URL and Redirect Rules  you should open a private browsing session  like  Incognito Mode  in Chrome  Copy  paste  and test the Endpoint URL in Incognito Mode and anything cached will go away once you close the session     Step 5  Open the Route53 Management Console and Go To the Record Sets for Your Hosted Zone  Domain Name      Select the Hosted Zone  domain name  that you used when you created your bucket  Since I named my bucket  url-redirect-example vivekmchawla com   I m going to select the vivekmchawla com Hosted Zone  Click on the  Go to Record Sets  button      Step 6  Click the  Create Record Set  Button    Clicking  Create Record Set  will open up the Create Record Set window on the right side of the Route53 Management Console     Step 7  Create a CNAME Record Set     In the Name field  enter the hostname portion of the URL that you used when naming your S3 bucket  The  hostname portion  of the URL is everything to the LEFT of your Hosted Zone s name  I named my S3 bucket  url-redirect-example vivekmchawla com   and my Hosted Zone is  vivekmchawla com   so the hostname portion I need to enter is  url-redirect-example   Select  CNAME - Canonical name  for the Type of this Record Set  For the Value  paste in the Endpoint URL of the S3 bucket we created back in Step 3  Click the  Create Record Set  button  Assuming there are no errors  you ll now be able to see a new CNAME record in your Hosted Zone s list of Record Sets      Step 8  Test Your New URL Redirect  Open up a new browser tab and type in the URL that we just set up  For me  that s http   url-redirect-example vivekmchawla com   If everything worked right  you should be sent directly to an AWS sign-in page    Because we used the myaccount signin aws amazon com alias as our redirect s destination URL  Amazon knows exactly which account we re trying to access  and takes us directly there  This can be very handy if you want to give a short  clean  branded AWS login link to employees or contractors       Conclusions  I personally love the various AWS services  but if you ve decided to migrate DNS management to Amazon Route 53  the lack of easy URL forwarding can be frustrating  I hope this guide helped make setting up URL forwarding for your Hosted Zones a bit easier   If you d like to learn more  please take a look at the following pages from the AWS Documentation site    Example  Setting Up a Static Website Using a Custom Domain Configure a Bucket for Website Hosting Creating a Domain that Uses Route 53 Creating  Changing  and Deleting Resource Records   Cheers

User · Answer

If you re still having issues with the simple approach  creating an empty bucket then Redirect all requests to another host name under Static web hosting in properties via the console  Ensure that you have set 2 A records in route53  one for final-destination com and one for redirect-to final-destination com  The settings for each of these will be identical  but the name will be different so it matches the names that you set for your buckets   URLs

User · Answer

The AWS support pointed a simpler solution  It s basically the same idea proposed by  Vivek M  Chawla  with a more simple implementation    AWS S3    Create a Bucket named with your full domain  like aws example com On the bucket properties  select Redirect all requests to another host name and enter your URL  https   myaccount signin aws amazon com console    AWS Route53    Create a record set type A  Change Alias to Yes  Click on Alias Target field and select the S3 bucket you created in the previous step    Reference  How to redirect domains using Amazon Web Services  AWS official documentation  Is there a way to redirect a domain to another domain using Amazon Route 53

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