Creating buckets and objects in Amazon Simple Storage Service

AWS management console

The AWS login page is straightforward one-factor authentication (if you remember your account details, you’re in). After you have created an AWS account you can sign into the management console.

AWS also offer safer and more flexible ways of controlling access – IAM (Identity and Access Management) and MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication).

Amazon cloud services list

The list of Amazon’s Web Services is so long doesn’t easily fit on a page. AWS constantly improve and extend their customer services.

The Services link in the top left is always available when you use the console. It displays the full set of services any time.

Not all services are available through the management console - some can only be used with the command line interface or a program interface.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) web interface

The S3 management console is a web interface that allows non-technical people to use the S3 service. There is also a programmers’ interface and a set of command line tools for advanced users.

Using S3 means using buckets and objects. An object is a file, along with some background information. A bucket is a container to put them in.

Create a bucket

This modal window – one of many in the AWS management console – allows you to create a bucket. Creating a bucket means typing in a name and choosing a region.

Each bucket needs a unique label used to access the objects. That’s unique across the entire AWS S3 service, not just unique to you.

You are here (in terms of web breadcrumbs): Amazon Web Services > Storage & Content Delivery > S3 Scalable Storage in the Cloud > Buckets > Create Bucket.

Naming your bucket

AWS highlights things it doesn’t like in red.

This bucket name breaks AWS rules. The characters allowed in a bucket name are pretty limited, and the restrictions  vary from region to region.

• Good characters:  a-z, numbers 0-9 and the special characters period (.), underscore (_ )and dash (-).
• Bad characters: everything else. No spaces, apostrophe’s, ampersands or umlauts (sorry Günter).
• Risky characters: The letters A-Z are OK in the US region but aren’t acceptable in Ireland.

aws-bucket-12.png

Your list of buckets appears in the left pane, and objects in a bucket appear on the right.

Use the Upload button to add an object to this bucket.

S3 shortcut buttons

The row of buttons are shortcuts for S3 actions. The Properties button opens a third pane in this AWS management console window.

S3 actions

Use S3’s Upload window to pick objects for your bucket.

The Add Files button opens a file browser, to help you find what to upload from your computer to AWS S3.

The Start Upload button closes this Upload window and copies your files.

Transfers pane

Messages about upload progress appear in AWS S3’s Transfers pane.

Copying large files

The transfer pane displays upload speed. Copying a large file from your computer to S3 is usually quick using an business connection and slow using a domestic connection.

This 4GB virtual machine file is being uploaded using a domestic ADSL link. This file will take many hours to copy.

Actions menu

The Actions menu helps you control your S3 objects. The menu pops up when you click the Actions button and when you right-click an object (or Ctrl-click using Mac OS X).

In addition to the Actions menu and a few buttons, there are other control shortcuts dotted around the console. File uploads can be paused and resumed using icons in the Transfers pane.

Permissions to access

Make an object public to share it with the world.

Check who can do what by looking at the Permissions tab. By default objects are private. The only Grantee is you - no-one else has access.

Object URLs

The URL for the shared object is displayed in the Details tab. It looks something like this: https://s3-my-region.amazonaws.com/my-bucket/my-object.

Click this link to test the download (to make sure you don’t get an Access Denied message) then pass it on to others.

Make sure you understand pricing structure!

Your account activity shows how much you will be charged.

AWS uses a freemium marketing model – if your activity all falls within their free tier, you won’t pay anything.

Clean up your S3 account by deleting old objects and buckets. And keep an eye on your bill – you don’t want any nasty surprises just because people like your files.