How to check AWS Cloudfront CNAME works?

Question

I had an experience on cloudflare CDN by setting the nameservers, and I can check by header CF-Cache-Status: HIT to see if it works.

But AWS Cloudfront setting is in different way and I don't sure whether it works or not.

I've read other stackoverflow posts like Cloudfront CNAME vs DNS CNAME, but there have no more details.

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Lets's say I want to cdn from domain.com to AWS Cloudfront, and here are what I've done:

1. Request a certificate to domain.com from Certificate Manager, and add a CNAME record Name:_5d5g45u2j2r5w1s2a8ed2.domain.com/Value:_5f44y54d25s1de4fg4f52s5s4dc1s5.kdiesksqs.acm-validations.aws on domain.com
2. Certificate Manager success validate domain.com and the certificate was issued abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcde

3. Create Distribution from CloudFront with detail:

   • State:Enabled
   • Alternate Domain Names (CNAMEs):domain.com
   • SSL Certificate:domain.com (abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcde)
   • Domain Name:11ppqrstuv.cloudfront.net

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When I browse 11ppqrstuv.cloudfront.net, it looks identically to domain.com, so I know AWS is able to grab my file.

But how could I know the domain.com successfully point to AWS(11ppqrstuv.cloudfront.net)?

Are there anything I need to do?

Answer 1

After searching for many articles, I found my answer, and here is the correct way to set up:

1. Request a certificate to *.domain.com from Certificate Manager.
2. Go to domain.com Host Server's DNS setting platform(ex: Godaddy's DNS Management) and add the CNAME record(copy from Certificate Manager).

    Name:_5d5g45u2j2r5w1s2a8ed2.domain.com
    Value:_5f44y54d25s1de4fg4f52s5s4dc1s5.kdiesksqs.acm-validations.aws

3. Wait for Certificate Manager validate successfully on *.domain.com and generate a certificate abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcde.
4. Create Distribution from CloudFront with detail:
   • State: Enabled
   • Alternate Domain Names (CNAMEs): aws.domain.com
   • SSL Certificate: *.domain.com (abcd-1234-abcd-1234-abcde)
   • other settings may find on AWS CloudFront Developer Guide.
5. Wait for the distribution status show Deployed, and it generate a Domain Name: 11ppqrstuv.cloudfront.net
6. Back to domain.com Host Server's DNS setting platform(ex: Godaddy's DNS Management) and add the CNAME record.

    Name: aws.domain.com
    Value: 11ppqrstuv.cloudfront.net

7. To test if it works, go to REDBOT, try http://aws.domain.com/your-folder/file.png, and you will see something like:

    X-Cache: Hit from cloudfront
    Via: 1.1 q2ws5d2w8s2sa3as3s2d5ds2ww.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)
    X-Amz-Cf-Pop: LAX3-C4
    X-Amz-Cf-Id: F1s5s5w5er4f4cls0ekesd4ds5s5sKPoSSCH5e2ss4==

8. That's it!

Answer 2

If you're using a linux machine then you can use dig or host command in the linux for finding the CName record.

dig <your-domain-name>

or

host -t cname <your-domain-name>