Level: Advanced

Today you are going to learn how to point your own domain or sub-domain to your Amazon S3 account. In this setup, for example, when user access http://media.your-domain.com/you-file.pdf they actually download the file from Amazon S3.

Managing your files in Amazon S3 account is not much different from using FTP and your web hosting. Every time you upload file to Amazon S3 it gets two URLs that can be used to get access to it.

First URL looks like:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket_name/file_name.ext

Second URL looks like:

http://bucket_name.s3.amazonaws.com/file_name.ext

As you can see, in a first example bucket name is used as part of file path and in a second example it is a part of domain name. These two URL are identical and point to the same file.

To configure your own sub-domain to point to Amazon S3, first you need to create a bucket with a name of your sub-domain. Use one of the tools from my previous blog post to do it. For example, for media.your-domain.com sub-domain you need to create a bucket with exactly the same name media.your-domain.com.

Next, using your DNS hosting provider for your-domain.com, create a CNAME record media that points to media.your-domain.com.s3.amazonaws.com.

The way you create a CNAME record depends on your domain DNS hosting provider. This example will show you how to do it with GoDaddy’s Total DNS Control.

Start with logging in to GoDaddy Control Panel. Select Domain Manager.

In the Domain Manager click the domain you’d like to use.

Scroll down until you see Total DNS menu. Go to Total DNS Control.

Click Add New CNAME Record button.

In the pop-up window enter a first part of a sub-domain name as an Alias Name. For media.your-domain.com it will be media.

After you finish, all files in media.your-domain.com bucket will be accessible using http://media.your-domain.com/file_name.ext URLs.

You can create separate Amazon S3 sub-domains for you web site images or large video files.

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Level: Beginner

So, you want to take advantage of scalable, reliable and cost effective solution for hosting your online videos? Here is your step-by-step guide on how to open Amazon S3 account and configure FLV Mate to use it.

Although creating account is free, you will need a credit card to sign up. Amazon will bill you monthly based on your account activities. If you don’t use your account and don’t put any data there, there will be no charge. When you start storing data and generate traffic, you will start to get billed.

Please review Amazon S3 pricing before opening your account. You can use this simple calculator to estimate your monthly Amazon S3 costs.

Having said that, let’s get started.

1. Sign up or Login to Amazon

Go to www.amazonaws.com and click Sign Up Now button.



Sign up for a new account or use your existing Amazon.com account if you wish.



2. Fill in an account form

Fill in the form and accept a service agreement.



3. Enable Amazon S3

Select Amazon Simple Storage Service from the list of services.



Click Sign Up For Amazon S3.



Review pricing and enter your credit card details.



4. Retrieve you Access Key and Secret key

Go to www.amazonaws.com and login.

Under You Account menu select Access Identifiers.



Get your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.



5. Configure FLV Mate

Open FLV Mate options screen and select S3 Account tab.



Paste your Access Key and Secret Key and click Test Connection.

If you’ve done every thing correctly you now have your own cloud-based video hosting service and ready to publish your first video with FLV Mate. Next time I will show you how to set up your own domain to be used with Amazon S3 (the upcoming version of FLV Mate will support it). You will be able to point media.youdomain.com to your Amazon S3 account.

Please leave you comments and let me know what you think.

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Technorati Tags: amazon s3, flv mate, tutorial