Redirecting a Domain to Another Domain on AWS with CloudFormation

There are many reasons you might need to redirect one domain to another: rebranding, consolidating properties, or retiring an old domain while preserving traffic. On AWS you can do this entirely with infrastructure as code using CloudFormation, combining S3, CloudFront, ACM, and Route53 into a single stack.

How It Works

The pattern is similar to a www-to-root redirect but the source and destination are completely different domains:

1. S3 Bucket - configured to redirect all requests from the source domain (e.g., domain.net) to the destination domain (e.g., domain.com) over HTTPS.
2. ACM Certificate - provisions an SSL certificate for the source domain with DNS validation.
3. CloudFront Distribution - provides the HTTPS endpoint in front of the S3 redirect bucket.
4. Route53 Record - creates an A record alias for the source domain pointing to CloudFront.

The Easy Way

Run the automated script which handles everything interactively:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cbschuld/aws-cf-redirect-to-another-domain/main/create-redirect-to-another-domain.sh > /tmp/create-redirect-to-another-domain.sh && bash /tmp/create-redirect-to-another-domain.sh && rm /tmp/create-redirect-to-another-domain.sh

The script prompts for your AWS profile, region, source domain, destination domain, and stack name.

The CloudFormation Template

Here is the full template for manual deployment:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Description: Redirect domain.net to domain.com with HTTPS

Parameters:
  SourceDomainName:
    Type: String
    Description: The source domain name (e.g., domain.net)
  DestinationDomainName:
    Type: String
    Description: The destination domain name (e.g., domain.com)
  HostedZoneId:
    Type: String
    Description: The Route 53 Hosted Zone ID for the SourceDomainName

Resources:
  RedirectBucket:
    Type: AWS::S3::Bucket
    Properties:
      BucketName: !Sub "${SourceDomainName}"
      WebsiteConfiguration:
        RedirectAllRequestsTo:
          HostName: !Ref DestinationDomainName
          Protocol: https
  Certificate:
    Type: AWS::CertificateManager::Certificate
    Properties:
      DomainName: !Ref SourceDomainName
      ValidationMethod: DNS
      DomainValidationOptions:
        - DomainName: !Ref SourceDomainName
          HostedZoneId: !Ref HostedZoneId
  CloudFrontDistribution:
    Type: AWS::CloudFront::Distribution
    Properties:
      DistributionConfig:
        Aliases:
          - !Ref SourceDomainName
        Origins:
          - Id: S3-RedirectOrigin
            DomainName: !Select [1, !Split ["http://", !GetAtt RedirectBucket.WebsiteURL]]
            CustomOriginConfig:
              HTTPPort: 80
              HTTPSPort: 443
              OriginProtocolPolicy: http-only
              OriginSSLProtocols:
                - TLSv1.2
        DefaultCacheBehavior:
          TargetOriginId: S3-RedirectOrigin
          ForwardedValues:
            QueryString: false
          ViewerProtocolPolicy: redirect-to-https
        Comment: !Sub "Redirect ${SourceDomainName} to ${DestinationDomainName}"
        Enabled: true
        ViewerCertificate:
          AcmCertificateArn: !Ref Certificate
          SslSupportMethod: sni-only
  Route53Record:
    Type: AWS::Route53::RecordSetGroup
    Properties:
      HostedZoneId: !Ref HostedZoneId
      RecordSets:
        - Name: !Ref SourceDomainName
          Type: A
          AliasTarget:
            DNSName: !GetAtt CloudFrontDistribution.DomainName
            HostedZoneId: Z2FDTNDATAQYW2
          Weight: 1
          SetIdentifier: "Redirect"

Outputs:
  CertificateArn:
    Value: !Ref Certificate
    Export:
      Name: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-CertificateArn"
  DomainName:
    Description: The CloudFront Distribution DNS name for the redirect
    Value: !GetAtt CloudFrontDistribution.DomainName
  CloudFrontDistributionID:
    Description: The CloudFront Distribution ID for the redirect
    Value: !Ref CloudFrontDistribution

Prerequisites

Retrieve the Hosted Zone ID for the source domain (the one you are redirecting away from):

PROFILE_NAME="your-profile"
DOMAIN_NAME="domain.net"

aws route53 list-hosted-zones-by-name --profile=$PROFILE_NAME | \
  jq --arg name "$DOMAIN_NAME." \
  -r '.HostedZones | .[] | select(.Name=="\($name)") | .Id'

Manual Deployment

Deploy the stack with the source domain, destination domain, and hosted zone ID:

aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name domain-redirect \
  --template-body file://redirect-to-another-domain.yml \
  --parameters \
  ParameterKey=SourceDomainName,ParameterValue=domain.net \
  ParameterKey=DestinationDomainName,ParameterValue=domain.com \
  ParameterKey=HostedZoneId,ParameterValue=Z1UVA2VESUQ1UN \
  --region=us-east-1 \
  --profile=your-profile

The source domain must be hosted in Route53 for DNS validation and the alias record to work. The destination domain can be hosted anywhere.

Related

For redirecting www to the root of the same domain, see Redirecting WWW to the Root Domain on AWS with CloudFormation. For creating standalone SSL certificates, see Creating an SSL Certificate in AWS with CloudFormation.

This CloudFormation template is managed in source control on GitHub.