CloudFront With DNS#

Your CloudFront distribution has a domain name like d1234567890abcdef.cloudfront.net, but that’s a long, hard-to-remember address.

To make it easier for users to find your content, you can create your own DNS record that points a friendly domain name to your CloudFront distribution. Instead of typing that long CloudFront URL, users can type something like cdn.yourcoolsite.com.

If you’re using Route 53, you can use an ALIAS (A) record instead of a CNAME. ALIAS records work better at the zone apex and are free. They also are a bit more plug-and-play within AWS if you’re using CloudFront, but CNAME also works just fine.

However, ALIASing a CloudFront distribution requires using a Public hosted zone, so because ours is private, we’ll use a CNAME record.

Cost check: CNAME records are free, but if you’re using Route 53, you’ll pay for hosted zones ($0.50/mo) and DNS queries ($0.40 per million queries).

Assignment#

In production, custom CloudFront domains also need to be configured as “Alternate domain names (CNAMEs)”, usually with a matching certificate. For now, just create the Route 53 CNAME below.

1. Navigate to Route 53 in the AWS console.
2. Select your patientping.internal hosted zone.
3. Create a new CNAME record:
   • Name: cdn (or whatever subdomain you want)
   • Value: Your CloudFront distribution domain (e.g. d1234567890abcdef.cloudfront.net)
4. Save the record.