Web URL Generator

Web URL Generator Overview

The Web URL Generator allows you to easily generate web URLs for your files. You can use this tool to create links for multiple files, an entire folder, or even an entire bucket.

Various options can be applied to the generated links, such as choosing HTTP or HTTPS connections, setting time-limited URLs based on a specific date or duration, using a custom host name (if you have a corresponding CNAME for your bucket), or shortening the URLs with various shortening services.

These options are explained in more detail below.

Simple Web URLs

A Simple Web URL looks like this:

https://{your-bucket-name}.s3.{region-code}.amazonaws.com/{file-name}

For example: https://images.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/kitty.jpg.

To use this type of URL, you need to make your file(s) publicly available.

To Generate a Simple Web URL

Select one or multiple files or folder(s) and click Files, Generate Web URL(s).

If you would like to generate URLs for all files inside a bucket, select the bucket and click Buckets, Generate Web URLs.

The Web URL Generator dialog will appear:

Web URLs are generated automatically. You can tick the Use secure transfer (HTTPS) checkbox if you want your files to be downloaded over an encrypted TLS channel.

You can copy the resulting URLs to the clipboard by clicking the corresponding button and then close the dialog.

Path-Style and Virtual-Hosted Style URLs

S3 currently supports two different addressing models:

• Path-style
• Virtual-hosted style

Path-style URLs look like this:

https://s3.{region-code}.amazonaws.com/{your-bucket-name}/{file-name}

Virtual-hosted style URLs look like this:

https://{your-bucket-name}.s3.{region-code}.amazonaws.com/{file-name}

Amazon is planning to deprecate the path-style addressing model , and CS Browser uses virtual-hosted style URLs whenever possible.

However, in some cases, path-style URLs are the only option:

• The bucket name contains uppercase characters
• The bucket name contains one or more dot characters and HTTPS is selected
• The bucket name is an IP address
• The bucket name contains two consecutive dot characters
• An Amazon S3 compatible account is selected with the path-style addressing model.

For the cases described above, CS Browser generates path-style URLs. For all other cases, virtual-hosted style URLs are produced.

Time-Limited URLs

Amazon S3 provides a way to pre-sign a URL to make it available for a limited period of time.

A possible use case for a pre-signed URL is granting temporary access to a file. For example, you can generate a time-limited URL to share a file with someone or use it with command-line tools like wget or curl to download a file.

Pre-signed URLs are generated using your AWS credentials and are valid for a limited time.

To Generate a Time-Limited URL

Select one or multiple files or folders and click Files, Generate Web URL(s). If you want to generate URLs for all files in a bucket, select the bucket and click Buckets, Generate Web URLs.

The Web URL Generator dialog will open:

The following expiration options are available:

• URL should expire after defined number of minutes - specify the link validity duration in minutes.
• URL should expire on exact date - choose the exact date and time when the link becomes invalid.

Configure the expiration by specifying the link validity duration in minutes or choosing the exact date and time when the link becomes invalid.

Important notice: A pre-signed URL can be valid for a maximum of seven days because the signing key used for signature calculation is valid for up to seven days. This is a limitation of Signature V4 (see the X-Amz-Expires query string parameter description). Signature V2, which allowed longer periods, has been deprecated by AWS.

Web URLs are generated automatically when you modify the options. You can also shorten the resulting URLs.

You can copy the resulting URLs to the clipboard by clicking the corresponding button and then close the dialog.

Custom Host Names

If you use a CNAME to map your host name to a virtual-hosted S3 URL, you may find it useful to specify a custom host name for your URLs.

Check out this article to learn more about customizing Amazon S3 URLs with CNAMEs.

For example, if you use a CNAME to map images.yourwebsite.com to images.yourwebsite.com.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com, you can specify the custom host name in the corresponding text box as shown in the screenshot below. This will ensure URLs are generated using the custom host name.

Another way to set a custom host name is to choose the Use bucket name as host name option. This can be useful if your bucket name matches the custom host name (which is required to configure the CNAME).

If you want to generate Web URLs for files served via CloudFront, you can choose the Use CloudFront domain name as host name option, as shown in the picture below. This option is available if a corresponding distribution is found (i.e., a distribution with the bucket as an origin). You may need permissions to perform the cloudfront:ListDistributions call to detect this.

URL Shortening

URLs to files stored on Amazon S3 are often quite long, especially when they are time-limited. You can use URL shortening services to convert your long URL into a shorter equivalent.

CS Browser currently supports the following URL shortening services:

• TinyURL - the first notable URL shortening service.
• Bitly - the most popular service at the moment.

To Shorten Web URLs

Select a URL shortening service from the drop-down list and click Shorten with.

Additional configuration is required for TinyURL and Bitly. Please see the sections below.

CS Browser will contact the selected shortening service and convert your long URLs into shorter equivalents.

You can now copy the resulting URLs using the corresponding button.

TinyURL Configuration

Additional configuration is required for the TinyURL service. To use the TinyURL API, you need to sign in to your TinyURL account and generate an API token.

Then, specify this token in the TinyURL API Token dialog.

Click the configuration button next to Shorten and choose Configure TinyURL...:

The Enter TinyURL API Token dialog will open.

Enter your TinyURL API token and click OK.

You can now shorten your Web URLs with TinyURL.

Bitly Configuration

Additional configuration is required for the Bitly service. To use the Bitly API, you need to sign up and generate your Generic Access Token.

Then, specify this token in the Bitly Access Token dialog.

Click the configuration button next to Shorten and choose Configure Bitly...:

The Enter Bitly Generic Access Token dialog will open.

Enter your Bitly Generic Access Token and click OK.

You can now shorten your Web URLs with Bitly.