Grant Pre-signed style url access to whole directory
amazon-s3, amazon-web-services, node.js
Solution
A Pre-Signed URL permits access to private objects stored on Amazon S3. It is a means of keeping objects secure, yet grant temporary access to a specific object.
It is created via a hash calculation based on the object path, expiry time and a shared Secret Access Key belonging to an account that has permission to access the Amazon S3 object. As such, each pre-signed URL is unique to each object and cannot act as a wildcard for an entire directory.
Some alternatives:
- Grant public access to all objects in the subdirectory via a Bucket Policy. This means that the objects are no longer private, but it is the easiest way to "publish" a bucket or directory or objects.
- Access via the API rather than plan URLS, which includes the passing of credentials that can be linked to a User created in Identity and Access Management (IAM). This would involve using a tool such as the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) to retrieve the objects rather than a web browser and has the benefit that it can copy multiple objects at the same time (just like a normal `cp` command).
See also: AWS CLI copy command
Problem
I have a node app and am using the `aws-sdk`. I'm able to successfully call the `getSignedUrl()` method and get a URL to a specific file. However I'd like to be able to grant `*` access recursively inside a specific directory rather than just a single file. Is this even possible?