# Issues with AWS CDN and S3 **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/issues-with-aws-cdn-and-s3/391132 **Category:** Self-hosting **Tags:** cdn, s3 **Created:** [December 10, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/issues-with-aws-cdn-and-s3/391132 "2025-12-10T03:15:44Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 20
### Author: ![philh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/philh/32/532740_2.png) [@philh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/philh) #### Post date: [December 20, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/issues-with-aws-cdn-and-s3/391132/20 "2025-12-20T20:11:17Z")
Whew! It took a ton of time and some hours (8 over 2 calls) on the phone with a very helpful Amazon engineer but I think I have my head around this. Things are working great on the RepealOBBBA site and my process is reproducible to other sites. I may write things up but a few notes for now: 1. DISCOURSE\_CDN\_URL (if using AWS S3) and DISCOURSE\_S3\_CDN\_URL require their own Cloudfront distributions. 2. DISCOURSE\_CDN\_URL does not use a bucket. 3. DISCOURSE\_CDN\_URL can be a nonAWS CDN. [Bunny.net](http://Bunny.net) works great. (I am told Bunny Storage with S3 support is due out 2026 1st quarter) 4. DISCOURSE\_CDN\_URL and DISCOURSE\_S3\_CDN\_URL CDNs can be branded urls with the appropriate DNS config. 5. DISCOURSE\_S3\_CDN\_URL requires an uploads bucket. 6. The uploads bucket requires ACLs enabled and “Everyone (public access)” set to “Read” and you must set a policy for the bucket. 7. The backups bucket does not require ACLs or policy. Edit(s) 1. Check the box in S3 use CDN URL for all uploads: Use CDN URL for all the files uploaded to s3 instead of only for images. Not enabling always caused failures for me. ![Screenshot 2025-12-20 122637](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/9/2/7/9270c2750e0edce9e7f9160bb63d3394d774f78a.png) I imagine many may read the above and go duhhh Phil, no kidding, that is obvious but… my BBS head did not get it right away. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/issues-with-aws-cdn-and-s3/391132)._