How To Set Up Amazon S3 The Easy Way

My blog and a host of other websites i own are running on a shared web hosting. i recently started having trouble with my web host as a result of my sites consuming huge resources like CPU usage and bandwidth, which led to the frequent suspension of my account. in order to reduce the pressure place on the server by my websites, i decided to start hosting my blog images on the cloud. after some digging, i finally settled for Amazon s3.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is storage for the Internet. Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Amazon s3 offers 5GB of standard storage; 20,000 Get Requests, and 2,000 Put Requests available to new AWS customers, and are available for 12 months following your AWS sign-up date. When your free usage expires or if your application use exceeds the free usage tiers, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates.

How To Setup Amazon S3
  • Create an Amazon account or login if you have an account already.
    amazon s3 signup and loginif you are signing up, the account isn’t set up automatically, you will receive a mail when your account is activated.
  • In your AWS Management Console Home, Click S3, then you will be taking to s3 portal. amazon s3  - AWS Management Console
  • Now we are going to create a bucket. just as your “public_html” folder is in shared hosting, so is the bucket. Bucket is Amazon S3′s terminology for root folder.
    Click on the Create Bucket button, enter your desirable bucket name and region. creating amazon s3 bucket
  • click the bucket name to open it. Now that your bucket has been created, you can start uploading your files and also create a folder inside the bucket. Amazon bucket folder
  • Setting Bucket And File Permissions
  • The final step is to set permission to your uploaded content. you can make your files not to be accessible by the public, from a specified user, or make the content available to every one.
    Take me for example, i want everyone to be able to view all images hosted on tech4sky bucket. to do this, i selected the bucket, then click the Properties tad at the top right corner.
    i added a permission and granted everyone view permission as shown on the image below;
    Creating bucket permission
  • Another workaround on setting permission – assuming you want to make certain file(s) in a bucket accessible to the public(everyone) and the rest inaccessible. all you need do is, deny the public(everyone) permission to your bucket so only you can view them, then open the bucket, check the file(s) you want to make public and select make public on the action tab.
    Make certain file(s) public- amazon bucket

Now you should have an understanding of how Amazon s3 works!!

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