idle-ti.me website

idle-ti.me website is crafted with Zola and enhanced by tabi theme.

Deploying a Static Website with Zola, Amazon S3, and CloudFront

This guide outlines the steps required to deploy and serve a static website built with Zola using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, specifically S3 for storage and CloudFront for content delivery.

Official Documentation References

• AWS CloudFront Setup Guide: Amazon CloudFront Distribution Documentation
• Zola AWS Deployment Guide: Zola AWS S3 Deployment Documentation

Required Configuration Steps

1. Website Navigation Configuration

Issue: Sub-pages don't automatically redirect to index.html when accessed directly.

Solution:

• Create a CloudFront function or implement Lambda@Edge
• Configure the function to handle routing requests to the appropriate index.html file
• This ensures proper navigation throughout the website's directory structure

2. Error Handling Setup

Issue: Default 403 errors appear instead of custom 404 pages when accessing non-existent content.

Solution:

• Access CloudFront distribution settings
• Configure custom error responses
• Map 403/404 status codes to the 404.html page
• Ensure proper error status codes are returned to maintain SEO best practices

3. Cache Management Strategy

Issue: CloudFront caching prevents immediate visibility of S3 bucket content updates.

Solutions:

A. Implement Automated Cache Invalidation:

• Utilize Zola's provided GitHub Actions workflow
• Configure the workflow to trigger CloudFront cache invalidation after successful deployments
• This ensures content updates are immediately visible to users

B. Resource Versioning Implementation:

• Add version identifiers to resource URLs
• Enable granular cache control for specific resources
• Minimize full cache invalidation requirements
• Optimize content delivery performance

Practical Implementation

For a detailed example of these configurations in action, refer to the blog post: Zola: How to deploy a website using S3 Bucket and CloudFront

This implementation guide demonstrates the practical application of the above configurations in a production environment.