Configure And Deploy A Unity Game To Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service by AWS that can be used to store all kind of data, files, and objects. While S3 is majorly used to store data and files, you can also store/host applications. The typical way to host a website in S3 is hosting static websites. Key benefits of hosting static websites in S3 includes high performance and scalability, cost effective, built-in security, compliance, and audit capabilities, integrated access controls, and analytics. And the best part is, it just takes minutes to setup, deploy, and launch your website in S3.

 

When you build a static Unity web app or game that is built to be run in a browser, you can use Amazon S3. This step by step tutorial explains how to configure a S3 bucket, upload files, and host a static website in S3.

 

Please follow the following steps.

 

Step 1. Create a S3 bucket

 

Login to your AWS account and go to AWS Management Console.

1. Navigate to S3 in the AWS Console
   Find S3 by typing S3 in the services text box and select S3, Scalable Storage in the Cloud.
   
   
   

2. Create new bucket
   Click on Create bucket and enter a bucket name. Name does not have capital letters. I give my bucket name, “cscbucket”.
   
   
   

Note

A bucket name has to be a unique name. If there is previously bucket in AWS, you will get an error message.

 

Select a Region. I keep my Region as US East.

 

 

Click Next.

 

This screen is for bucket properties. Set all properties as required by your policies. For simplicity, I keep the default settings.

 

 

Click Next.

 

On this screen, we can block or allow all public access. We will use Permissions. So leave this default as well. We will come back here later.

 

 

Click Next.

 

On next screen, you will see selections options etc.

 

 

Click Create bucket to create the bucket.

 

You will notice “cscbucket” bucket in the bucket list.

 

 

Step 2. Upload Files to a S3 bucket

 

Now, the next step is to upload our production build project that needs to be deployed in AWS.

 

Click on the bucket name.

 

On this screen, we can upload files/objects and set their properties.

 

 

Upload all the files to bucket using drag and drop or using the Add Files button.

 

 

Easiest way is to drag and drop all files including folders to the screen.

 

 

Click Upload button to upload files.

 

You will see some error message if there are any problems with the file upload.

 

In my case, I see files have been uploaded.

 

 

Set Bucket Properties and Enable Static Website Hosting

 

Go to your S3 buckets list and click on the bucket name.

 

Click the “Properties” tab.

 

 

Click the “Static website hosting” option on the above screen.

 

You will get the Static website hosting screen.

 

 

Select “Use this bucket to host a website”.

 

Enter “index.html” as the Index document. In our case, the index file is Index.html.

 

This can be any default document of your website. You can also set error, redirection, and other settings here. For now, we will leave everything default.

 

Note

As soon as you select this option, you will get an Endpoint created by AWS. That is your URL to access this static website. In the above case, it is

 

 

Click Save button.

 

You will see Bucket hosting is checked on the Static website hosting box.

 

 

Now your bucket is configured for static website hosting, and you now have an S3 website URL - http://cscbucket.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com

 

We are not done yet. This URL still is forbidden to access publicly. We must set access permissions and policies.

 

If you click on the above URL, you will get the following 403 Forbidden error.

 

 

Grant Access to Website

• Go back to S3 buckets list and click on your bucket name.
• Select the “Permissions” tab at the top.
• Under “Block all public access”, click “Edit” and check/uncheck Block all public access.

Check policies/ACLs based on your company policy and set Group access that should have public access to this bucket.

 

 

On the above screen, check/uncheck block public access to buckets and objects that are granted through ACLs and access point policies.

 

 

After Confirm, you will see the “Public access settings updated successfully” message.

 

Update S3 Bucket Policy

 

Click into your bucket.

 

Click the “Permissions” section.

 

Select “Bucket Policy”.

 

Add the following Bucket Policy and then Save

{
    "Version": "2008-10-17",
    "Id": "PolicyForPublicWebsiteContent",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::cscbucket/*"
        }
    ]
}

 

Change the bucket name with newly created bucket name in the above policy. That is all.

 

Now, the website is available to access publicly.

 

http://cscbucket.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com

 

Summary

 

In this step by step tutorial, we learned how to configure an AWS S3 bucket and deploy a Unity game to the bucket and configure it to host and run the game in the cloud.