CloudFront distribution not showing as Route53 alias target

Question

I’m trying to add a route 53 record set that points to my cloudfront distribution. However, when I select ‘create record set’ in route 53 and click the alias target in the subsequent panel, the cloud front distribution is not listed. All I get is ‘No targets available’. My Distribution has been created and is enabled (and is working). I have added a CName to my distribution with the same domain name that I’m setting up in Route53, but it still doesn’t show.

How do I get my distribution to show in the Alias Target field so that I can point a Route53 ‘a’ record to it?

Thanks

The console is notoriously sluggish about populating that box. Click into it, click away from it, click into it again seems like it might be the correct magical incantation. Did you wait until your Cloudfront distribution's status said "Deployed?" — Michael - sqlbot, Jun 03 '15 at 10:56
[This article](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/resource-record-sets-values-alias.html) describes it: the alternate domain name (CNAME) should be not empty to be visible in the dropdown for A-record alias. — boldnik, Mar 05 '19 at 13:19
@Michael-sqlbot I also had to refresh the Route53 page to see it. — qu1j0t3, May 14 '20 at 21:01
i changed my cloudfront security policy to TLSv1.1_2016 and it resolve this issue for me — CodeDoctorJL, Aug 04 '20 at 19:57

score 111 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 01 '19 at 21:33

111

Combining several correct but incomplete answers:

Only A records and AAAA are supported. Not CNAME records.
The Route53 "Alias Target" box matches against CloudFront distributions' "Alternate Domain Names" field. If you're creating a new record set for something.example.com, you should have already set the alternate domain name for one of your distributions to something.example.com.
The Route53 Management Console can be slow, and it might not find your distribution right away — wait until the distribution status is Deployed.

edited Sep 01 '19 at 21:33

Sam Sehnert

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answered Mar 24 '16 at 14:18

jelder

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`AAAA` also works, in fact it is recommended by the AWS doc (step 7): https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/routing-to-cloudfront-distribution.html – Mehran Apr 13 '18 at 19:06
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Also, a CloudFront distribution won't appear if it's status is `In Progress`. Wait until it's `Deployed`. – Sam Sehnert Sep 01 '19 at 21:30
It's amazing this is not better documented in the CF Distribution setup doc. – qu1j0t3 May 14 '20 at 21:01
@Mehran That's incorrect. `AAAA` records are for IPv6 IPs. – ErikE Dec 07 '21 at 15:57
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Number 2 was missing for me, thanks! – vargen_ Mar 11 '22 at 17:46
i bought both of my domain names on AWS, but when i add them to my cloudfront distribution im told to attach a certificate, i don't see where i can do that, i went to certificate manager, it doesn't allow me to create a certificate, for some obscure reason, all this is far too complicated, they have all the info they need – Martijn Scheffer Apr 13 '23 at 23:49

score 81 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 21:32

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Make sure you have set one or more Alternate Domain Names for you distribution, otherwise it won't be listed on the target combo for Route53 Alias.

As far as I understand, that's the same as configuring ServerAlias on your Apache's VirtualHost (or the correspondent for Nginx and so on). Without it, your requests wouldn't be identified as destined to that distribution when it gets there.

From AWS's documentation:

If you're using CloudFront to distribute your content, you can use Amazon Route 53 to route queries to your CloudFront distribution. The name of your Amazon Route 53 hosted zone (such as example.com) must match an alternate domain name in the CloudFront distribution. You cannot route queries to the CloudFront domain name for your distribution (such as d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net). The following procedure assumes that you have already registered the applicable domain names.

answered Jul 28 '15 at 21:32

Edson Marquezani Filho

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Thanks, that fixed it for me. – Dean Oakley Dec 02 '16 at 04:25
Can you please link to the documentation? – Gobi Dasu Jun 16 '17 at 06:29
as of 10/2017: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/resource-record-sets-values-alias.html – Carsten Oct 26 '17 at 19:02
this was my issue – bad robot Jun 06 '19 at 20:55
This was also my issue, thanks. – strangeMethod Mar 08 '22 at 20:30
Thank you. It seems that alternate domain name is necessary. – Veleirian Jan 12 '23 at 02:34

score 41 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '16 at 17:49

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Make sure it's an A record rather than a CNAME record (weird, I know). I found that buried in the documentation here:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/resource-record-sets-values-alias.html

answered Jan 21 '16 at 17:49

Andrew Clark

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THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER – Moataz Elmasry Jun 19 '16 at 20:21
Although correct AWS should really fix up at the very least wording. In the distribution settings it asks to specify the CNAMEs however route 53 must be set to an A record for it to work. – Rudiger Jun 05 '17 at 05:45
Thanks Andrew. This was very confusing. – dmitrybelyakov Oct 01 '19 at 10:29

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 03 '15 at 16:14

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If your distribution does not show as an alias target, you can always manually copy and paste the d123.cloudfront.net (replace d123.cloudfront.net with the actual DNS name of your distribution) in to the target. This will allow you to create the alias record.

answered Jun 03 '15 at 16:14

imperalix

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The Route53 Management Console does not currently permit you to do this. You could make a CNAME instead, but it won't be an "alias" in the AWS sense. – jelder Mar 24 '16 at 14:11
jelder, it worked and still works for me every time. – imperalix Mar 29 '16 at 17:25
This works, as soon as you paste the CloudFront distribution URL in that box, AWS picks it up, and saves it. Thank you! – Herald Smit Jan 26 '18 at 10:48

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 02 '20 at 20:33

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Make sure your CloudFront distribution includes the name of your site (example.com )! I was having the same issue and spent well over an hour trying to solve the problem...

answered Nov 02 '20 at 20:33

DonCarleone

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This worked for me. I had to add my domain to the alternate domain names. Thanks! – Juan Rangel Dec 30 '21 at 22:11
This works for subdomains (something.example.com), but doesn't work for apex domain (example.com) – hp10 Jul 20 '23 at 10:09

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 11 '19 at 11:18

TL/DR

Set your Origin ID in the origin in your Cloudfront Distribution to be the same as the domain name you are trying to create an alias for

More Detail

I struggled with this for some time.

In the end I compared a working CloudFront distribution which did show up in Route 53 with one that did not.

What I noticed was that the Origin Id specified in the origin for the distribution was not the domain name for my site.

This option is found in: CloudFront Distributions > [Id of distribution] > Origins and Origin Groups > Origins.

I only had one origin listed where the path was the name of a public s3 bucket. This entry also had an Origin ID field. When I updated this to be my domain name (without the www prefix) e.g. testdomain.com then I was able to see this cloud front distribution in the route 53 alias drop down.

score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 12 '19 at 01:02

You have to fill the Alternate Domain Names (CNAMEs) field e.g. use

www.my_site.com  
*.my_site.com

For SSL Certificate field select

Custom SSL Certificate (example.com)

for this you will have to create and verify your domain with ACM, ACM has to be created in Virginia.

After that you will be able to see the Cloudfront in R53.

score 5 · Answer 8 · edited Nov 08 '20 at 16:27

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The trick was to enter the www before the domain because CloudFront matches against that alternate domain name with www or whatever subdomain you use. Type www or your subdomain and it will find the distribution.

cloudfront

edited Nov 08 '20 at 16:27

Mihail Duchev

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answered Nov 08 '20 at 16:09

nate sire

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we become putting workarounds to some bugs :) – Abdennour TOUMI Jul 22 '21 at 11:43
but how come you are able to select regions for cloudfront ?? cloudfront is always in us-east-1 – Abdennour TOUMI Jul 22 '21 at 11:49
To add to this, if you want to set the alias for the root domain (i.e. http://example.com) then add the www, find the distribution, then remove www to configure. – robertlayton Jun 09 '22 at 12:57

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 02 '20 at 01:26

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It was taking forever for my cloudfront distribution status property to read deployed.

However inputting the cloudfront domain url into my address bar brought me to my website, aka the cloudfront domain url was live.

Feeling impatient, I copied this domain address and pasted it into the alias target field.

It worked!

answered Jan 02 '20 at 01:26

learnAsWeGo

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This worked for me while adding a wild card subdomain. – Ajeesh Joshy May 10 '20 at 16:29

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 18 '23 at 23:28

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I wanted to point a subdomain to CloudFront. I added it here and it started showing CloudFront in Route53 having previously hidden it.

answered Jul 18 '23 at 23:28

garryp

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CloudFront distribution not showing as Route53 alias target

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