Скачать или смотреть Resolving 403 Errors from CloudFront Requests to Spring Boot Applications

Discover how to fix `403` status errors encountered when making CloudFront requests to your Spring Boot application, optimizing for HTTPS communication.
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Troubleshooting CloudFront 403 Errors with Spring Boot Applications

When using Amazon CloudFront with a Spring Boot application, encountering a 403 Forbidden status error can be quite frustrating, especially when everything seems configured correctly. This issue often arises in the context of integrating CloudFront with applications hosted on AWS Elastic Beanstalk. In this guide, we will explore a specific scenario and the solution that resolved the 403 error, helping you efficiently debug similar issues.

The Problem

The issue at hand involves a static Single Page Application (SPA) hosted in S3, that makes requests to a Spring Boot application via an iframe. When a specific request is made within the iframe, it returns a 403 error, leading to confusion since testing the same request directly in the browser or Postman returns a 200 OK status.

Understanding the Setup

Here’s a brief outline of the architecture involved:

SPA: Hosted at web.mysite.com and demanding resources from mysite.com

Spring Boot App: Hosted on Elastic Beanstalk, receiving requests at mysite.com/some/path/*

CloudFront: Serves as a content delivery network (CDN) for both the SPA and the API

CORS Configuration

The Spring Boot application is configured to allow cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) from the SPA's domain, and Spring Security is set up to permit all requests to specific paths. Despite these configurations, requests made from the iframe resulted in a 403 error:

Successful Requests: Directly accessing the URL in the browser worked.

Problematic Requests: Accessing via the iframe led to a forbidden status.

Investigating the Solution

After trying several debugging techniques, such as adjusting the CloudFront distribution settings and inspecting server logs, the breakthrough came from altering the Origin Protocol Policy in CloudFront.

Changing the CloudFront Origin Protocol Policy

Initial State: The policy was set to HTTP Only, which may not be ideal when dealing with HTTPS requests.

Adjustment Made: The policy was switched to HTTPS Only.

Understanding the Importance of HTTPS

The significance of this change lies in the encrypted communication required for processing requests correctly, especially when the underlying application works over HTTPS. The original configuration caused discrepancies between the resource types being requested (HTML vs. scripts), ultimately leading to failed requests from the iframe to return a 403 status.

Why This Fix Works

After testing the new policy, the requests started working as expected. A key observation surfaced regarding certificate warnings in Chrome that indicated mismatches in domains when trying to connect via HTTPS. Switching the protocol policy ensured that requests were consistently handled over secure connections, thereby eliminating the 403 errors.

Conclusion

By adjusting the Origin Protocol Policy in CloudFront to HTTPS Only, we were able to resolve the 403 errors affecting requests to the Spring Boot application. This experience reinforces the critical role of properly managing HTTPS settings in AWS environments, particularly when dealing with cross-origin requests and multiple AWS services.

Key Takeaways

Ensure that the Origin Protocol Policy in CloudFront matches the security protocols used to serve your application.

Make thorough checks on CORS configurations and Spring Security setups.

Test requests directly in the browser or tools like Postman to diagnose varying responses.

By keeping these considerations in mind, you can enhance your application's compatibility with AWS CloudFront and ensure seamless operation between various components of your architecture.