This document provides steps to configure Route 53 and CloudFront for a website hosted on AWS. It includes creating a Linux web server instance, installing PHP, adding a domain to Route 53, creating DNS records, setting up CloudFront distributions for the web server and an S3 bucket, and testing page load times by accessing the distributions from different regions. The goal is to demonstrate how to use CloudFront and Route 53 to distribute content globally via a CDN and measure performance improvements.

1. Route 53 + AWS Cloudfront How‐to
Contents
 Create Linux Instance
 Install and configure Webserver with PHP
 Add “Domain” to Route 53 Service
 Add AWS Name Servers to Domain Registrar
 Create a DNS record for the Webserver
 Create and configure Cloudfront Distribution Set (CDS) for Webserver
 Create a CNAME to Webserver CDS
 Test CDS Geo‐location using public proxy servers
 Create Windows instance in Singapore Region
 Install Firefox and app.telemetry Page Speed Monitor Plugin on Instance
 Run Page Load Test against Webserver CDS
 Create S3 bucket with static webpage
 Create CDS to S3 bucket
 Create a CNAME to S3 bucket CDS
 Run Page Load Test against S3 bucket CDS
 Create Elastic Load balancer pointing to Webserver Instance
 Create CDS to Elastic Load balancer
 Create a CNAME to Elastic Load balancer CDS
 Run Page Load Test against S3 bucket CDS

2. Create Linux Instance
 EC2  Instances  Launch Instance  Amazon Linux (t1.micro)  zen‐web
 Instance up and running

3. Install and configure Webserver with PHP
 Install httpd & PHP
 Create a php dir and add apache permission
o Add “php” directory to php.conf

4. o Add php script for server and client IP address
o Start httpd server
o Connect to the web‐server

5. Add “Domain” to Route 53 Service
 Run Domain Wizard
Note: In my example domain is “zecircletech.com” and registrar godday.com.

6. Add AWS Name Servers to Domain Registrar
 Login to Registrar Domain Administration and update Name Server
 Disable HTTP Forwarding

7. Create a DNS record for the Webserver
 Run Route 53 Wizard
 Test new domain

8. Create and configure Cloudfront Distribution Set
 Run CDS Wizard

10.
Note 1: Name should be www.zencircletech.com(webserver) and not zencircletech.com
Note 2: Add CDN CNAME global.zencircletech.com was added later
Note 3: First distribution has no S3 buckets or load‐balancers
 Cloud distribution set created
 Test Cloudfront domain

11. Create a CNAME to Webserver CDS
 Add record set to Domain in Route 53 Service
 Test CNAME pointing to CDS CNAME (Working!!)

12. Test CDS Geo‐location using public proxy servers
 http://www.publicproxyservers.com/proxy/list2.html
 France public proxy: www.go.unblockyoutuber.com/
 Singapore public proxy : anoncloud.se

13.  Restriction example: Add United States to “Blacklist”

14.
CDN Page load Test Methodology: We will create a webpage with large image, it will part of be
CDN Distributed Set, and hence it will be replicated. We will create an access point to test load
time. Access point will be a windows 2003 instance in from Singapore region. A region with
significantly large geo‐graphic distance will show a significant difference in load time.
Create a webpage with very large image
 Size and source code of web page
[root@domU-12-31-39-06-BC-4B ~]# ls -lh /var/www/php/eso.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.9M Oct 6 2013 /var/www/php/eso.jpg
[root@domU-12-31-39-06-BC-4B ~]# cat /var/www/php/pload.php
<?php
<img src="eso.jpg" alt="eso telescope">
?>
Create Windows instance in Singapore Region
 Create a new VPC in Singapore Region and launch a windows 2003 32 bit instance
Note: VPC is mandatory in Singapore Zone.
Install Firefox and app.telemetry Page Speed Monitor Plugin on Instance
 https://addons.mozilla.org/en‐US/firefox/addon/apptelemetry/
 Plugin will help determine the load time for webpage.

15. Run Page Load Test against Webserver CDS
 Connect directly to Webserver and note down the load time
Note: Delete browser cache
 Connect to the CDS URL

16. Create S3 bucket with static webpage
 http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/website‐hosting‐custom‐domain‐
walkthrough.html
 Create a bucket “s3.zencircletech.com” & edit bucket policy
 Create first webpage (index.hml page with image)
<img src=https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.zencircletech.com/download.jpg
alt="aws_logo">
<h1>zen-s3</h1>
 Upload index.hml and image to the bucket

17.  Configure bucket for static hosting
 Create a new sub domain “s3.zencircletech.com” and add bucket Endpoint

18.
Create CDS to S3 bucket
 Create html file with large image file and upload to s3 bucket
index2.hml
<img src=https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.zencircletech.com/eso.jpg
alt="eso">
<h1>large-img-s3</h1>

19.  Create Cloudfront distribution set of the S3 bucket

20. Create a CNAME to S3 bucket CDS
 Create Record Set in Route 53 Service

21. Run Page Load Test against S3 bucket CDS
 Test using previous created instance in Singapore region

22. Create Elastic Load Balancer pointing to Webserver Instance
 Run Elastic Load Balancer Wizard

25. Create CDS to Elastic Load balancer
 Run CDS Wizard
Create a CNAME to S3 Elastic Load Balancer CDS
 Create Record Set in Route 53 Service

26.
Run Page Load Test against S3 bucket CDS
 Test using previous created instance in Singapore region
Note: Different CNAME for S3 Bucket and Elastic Load Balancer were created for how‐
to, practically they may not be needed.