How do you let only authorized user have access contents stored in Amazon's S3?

Question

Once you stored contents in S3 and make it public, then everyone have access to it. Is there a way to let only authorized users have access to the content stored in S3? For example, I have a site that let people store their documents. The server stores these documents in S3 and I would like only the user who uploaded the document to have access to it.

I know I can copy the S3 contents to my server and let only authorized users have access, but this will make the server slow. I would like to be able server the contents directly to the client's browser from the S3.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The link given in the above answer is no longer correct -- Amazon had it's documentation reorganized. I think these are the correct pages to read:

• http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonS3/2006-03-01/dev/index.html?RESTAuthentication.html#RESTAuthenticationQueryStringAuth
• http://s3.amazonaws.com/doc/s3-developer-guide/RESTAuthentication.html

Answer 2

You want to read the section called 'Query String Request Authentication Alternative' found here

It explains how to create a time-based expiring link to an S3 object

You would then have to write the code that manages the users (the who owns which object part of your question).