Have a domain on AWS Route 53? Need it to point somewhere else? Here’s a quick and simple guide on why you might need to do that and how to do it:
Why set up a redirect?
In my case I have a couple of domains on Route 53, but this website is hosted on Squarespace. You could transfer the domains to Squarespace, but I think the hosting fees on Squarespace are higher than AWS. You can use Squarespace to redirect your domain to your website, but it won’t let you redirect to a specific page. I own onlycapys.com and I wanted it to redirect to jenaror.com/shop, so here’s how I did it.
Cost
BTW this is extremely cheap. Since we’re only using S3 for redirects, the cost should come out to $.005 per 1000 requests.
S3 Bucket configuration
First step is to head over to S3 on AWS. From there hit Create Bucket on the top left:
Name your bucket the exact same name as your domain. In this example, mywebsite.com
croll down to Block Public Access and make sure to uncheck the top most action. Unchecking that will prompt a confirmation below that, make sure to acknowledge that and check the box. We need public access since we’ll be using this S3 bucket for redirects.
Hit Create Bucket on the bottom and it’ll throw us out to our list of S3 buckets. Click on the one we just created:
Take note of the AWS region you have configured for your bucket. Click on the name on the left and you’ll be on the following screen. Click on Properties at the top:
Scroll to the very bottom of this menu and look for Static Website Hosting. Click Edit on the left:
From this menu, we’ll Enable Static Website Hosting, change Hosting Type to Redirect Requests, and change the Host name to whatever website you want to redirect. Don’t worry about the protocol, since the destination will handle the http/https request. Hit Save Changes.
route 53 configuration
We’re done with S3. Let’s head back to Route 53 and click our domain under Hosted Zones.
Hit Create record. If you see something different from the following screenshot, look for a menu option near the top that says Switch to quick create. On the following screen type in the following settings for your new record:
Name - blank
Record Type - A
Alias - Yes
Alias type - Alias to S3 website endpoint
From there make sure to select the same region we noted down before, and underneath that select the S3 bucket we just created:
Hit Create records and that’s it! It’ll take around 45 seconds for Route 53 to update, but once it’s done navigate over to your domain and see if it redirects!
Troubleshooting
The only troubleshooting I have is if you get a 400 Bad Gateway error when navigating to your website, make sure that you selected the same region in Route 53 as S3. I didn’t the first time and I got this error. If you made this mistake and are still getting the error, try closing your browser, it might be that it cached the bad website and it just needs to be cleared for it redirect correctly.
If you have any questions or need help, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll see if I can’t chime in.