CloudFront

Amazon CloudFront is a CDN service that distributes content to end users with low latency through a worldwide network of edge locations. It integrates natively with S3, EC2, ALB, API Gateway, and Lambda@Edge.

Key Features

• Global Edge Network — 600+ points of presence (PoPs) across 90+ cities and 40+ countries.
• Origin Types — S3 buckets, EC2 instances, ALB/ELB, API Gateway, or any custom HTTP origin.
• HTTPS/TLS — Free TLS certificates via ACM, TLS 1.3 support, and SNI.
• Cache Behaviors — Path-based routing with configurable TTL, headers, query strings, and cookies.
• Lambda@Edge / CloudFront Functions — Run code at edge locations for request/response manipulation.
• Origin Shield — Additional caching layer to reduce load on origins.

Architecture

┌──────┐    ┌────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────┐
│ User │───▶│ Edge Location  │───▶│ Regional Edge    │───▶│  Origin  │
│      │    │ (cache + TLS)  │    │ Cache (optional) │    │ (S3/ALB) │
└──────┘    └────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘    └──────────┘

Cache Behaviors

Setting	Description
Path Pattern	URL path to match (e.g., /api/*, /static/*)
TTL (min/max/default)	Cache duration at the edge
Compress	Auto gzip/brotli compression for supported content
Viewer Protocol	HTTP only, HTTPS only, or redirect HTTP to HTTPS
Allowed Methods	Which HTTP methods to forward to origin

CLI

Distributions

# Create an S3 origin distribution
aws cloudfront create-distribution \
  --origin-domain-name my-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com \
  --default-root-object index.html

# List distributions
aws cloudfront list-distributions \
  --query 'DistributionList.Items[*].{Id:Id,Domain:DomainName,Status:Status}'

aws cloudfront get-distribution --id E1234567890
aws cloudfront update-distribution --id E1234567890 --distribution-config file://config.json --if-match ETAG
aws cloudfront delete-distribution --id E1234567890 --if-match ETAG

Cache Invalidation

aws cloudfront create-invalidation \
  --distribution-id E1234567890 \
  --paths "/*"

aws cloudfront list-invalidations --distribution-id E1234567890
aws cloudfront get-invalidation --distribution-id E1234567890 --id I2J3K4L5

Reference:

1. Official Website
2. CloudFront Developer Guide
3. CloudFront Pricing