How to set up JReviews with Amazon S3 and CloudFront CDN

In this tutorial I will show you how to integrate JReviews 2.4 with Amazon S3 and the CloudFront CDN. One of the new features is integrated remote storage using Amazon S3. Users can now upload media to S3 buckets and store all of the heavy images, files and videos there. This article shows the steps necessary to create an optimized integration between JReviews, S3 and CloudFront.

Set up your Amazon S3 Bucket

If you do not already have an account with Amazon Web Services you can create one here.

Log in to your AWS account and go to the AWS Management Console and click on the S3 icon. Click on "Create Bucket" and in the screen that pops up we will enter a bucket name and select a region.

Your bucket name should use a format like bucket_name.domain.com. This is to accomodate a content delivery network (optional) using Amazon CloudFront. If you already have a bucket loaded with media or you make a mistake entering the bucket name don't worry. Below I will show you how to change the name of an S3 bucket. As for the region, the cheapest storage is US Standard. If you need your files to be served from another region you can either select the closest datacenter now or, better yet, use a content delivery network to deliver your S3 content. I will explain how to set up the CDN below.

After creating a bucket you are all set. Now grab your access keys by clicking on the Security Credentials link under your name in the upper-right part of your screen. File:Access-keys.jpg