You can host a static website to an OSS bucket and allow users to access the website by using the custom domain name such as example.com that is bound to the bucket. This tutorial applies to scenarios where you want to host an existing static website to or build a new static website on an OSS bucket.

Step 1: Register a domain name

Before you build a static website, you must register a domain name for your website. We recommend that you use Alibaba Cloud Domains to register a domain name for your website. For more information, see How to register an Alibaba Cloud domain name.

In this example, example.com is used as the domain name of the website.

Notice If you want to bind the registered domain name to a bucket that is located in regions in mainland China, you must apply for an ICP filing for the domain name at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China. For more information, see Filing.

Step 2: Create a bucket

You must create a public read bucket to host the static website and store website data.

  1. Log on to the OSS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Buckets. On the Buckets page, click Create Bucket.
  3. In the Create Bucket panel, configure parameters for the bucket. The following table describes the parameters that you must configure.
    Parameter Description
    Bucket Name Specify the bucket name. In this example, specify the bucket name as examplebucket.
    Region Select the region where the bucket is located. In this example, select China (Hangzhou).
    Storage Class Select Standard.
    Access Control List (ACL) Select Public Read.

    Retain the default values for other parameters. For more information, see Create buckets.

Step 3: Create and upload web page files

You must create the default homepage and 404 error page files for the website and upload the files to the created bucket.

  1. Create two local HTML files.
    • Default homepage file
      In this example, the following content is used to generate the homepage file index.html of the static website. Customize the content of the homepage file based on your actual requirements.
      <html>
   <head>
       <title>Hello OSS! </title>
       <meta charset="utf-8">
   </head>
   <body>
       <P>Configure static website hosting for OSS bucket</p>
       <P>This is the index page</p>
   </body>
 </html>
    • Default 404 error page file
      In this example, the following content is used to generate the 404 error page file error.html of the static website. Customize the content of the 404 error page file based on your actual requirements.
      <html>
<head>
   <title>Hello OSS! </title>
   <meta charset="utf-8">
</head>
<body>
   <P>This is the 404 page</p>
</body>
</html>
  2. Upload the web page files to the bucket.
    1. Log on to the OSS console.
    2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Buckets. On the Buckets page, click the name of the bucket to which you want to upload the web page files.
    3. In the left-side navigation pane of the page that appears, click Files. On the page that appears, click Upload.
    4. In the Upload section of the Upload panel, click Upload and select the two web page files that you created. Retain the default values for other parameters.

Step 4: Configure static website hosting

  1. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Basic Settings > Static Pages.
  2. Click Configure. Set Default Homepage to index.html and Default 404 Page to error.html.
    Note To redirect access to a subfolder to the index.html object in the subfolder, you can enable Subfolder Homepage. For more information, see Configure static website hosting.
  3. Click Save.

Step 5: Bind the custom domain name to the bucket

Bind the registered custom domain name example.com to the examplebucket bucket that you create to use the domain name to access the bucket.

  1. On the Overview page of the bucket to which you want to bind the custom domain name, choose Transmission > Domain Names in the left-side navigation pane.
  2. Click Bind Custom Domain Name.
  3. Enter example.com in the Custom Domain Name field and turn on Add CNAME Record Automatically.
  4. Click Submit.

Step 5: (Optional) Accelerate your website by using Alibaba Cloud CDN

You can use Alibaba Cloud CDN to improve the performance of your website. Alibaba Cloud CDN caches the files of your websites, such as HTML files, images, and videos, to data centers around the world. When a visitor requests a file from your website, Alibaba Cloud CDN redirects the request to a copy of the file cached in the data center closet to the region in which the visitor is located. This way, the download speed is accelerated.

  1. On the Overview page of the bucket, choose Transmission > Domain Names in the left-side navigation pane.
  2. Click Not Configured on the right side of the domain name to go to the Alibaba Cloud CDN console.
  3. On the Add Domain Name page, set the required parameters. The following table describes the parameters.
    Parameter Description
    Domain Name to Accelerate Use the default settings.
    Resource Groups Select Default Resource Group.
    Business Type Content delivery varies by business type. Select the appropriate business type based on your stored content and the content usage. Select Image and Small File in this example.
    Origin Info Use the default settings.
    Port Select the port used by CDN. Select Port 80 in this example.
    Region Select the region that you want to accelerate. Select Mainland China Only in this example.
  4. Click Next, and then click Return to Domain Name List.
  5. Record the CNAME value of the domain name example.com.w.kunlunsl.com. Modify the CNAME record that is added when you bind the custom domain name to the bucket.
    1. Log on to the Alibaba Cloud DNS console.
    2. On the Manage DNS page, click Configure in the Actions column corresponding to the domain name to which you want to add a CNAME record.
    3. Find the CNAME record that is automatically added when you bind the custom domain name. Click Modify.
    4. Change Value to example.com.w.kunlunsl.com. Retain the default values for other parameters.
    5. Click OK.
  6. (Optional) On the Domain Names tab, turn on Auto CDN Cache Update.
    If you want that auto CDN cache update can be triggered by specified operations, you can submit a ticket to apply for the feature. After you are authorized to configure auto CDN cache update for specified operations, click Supported Operations in the Auto CDN Cache Update column corresponding to the domain name and select the operations that can trigger auto CDN cache update. For more information about the supported operations, see 4.

Step 6: Test the website

Visit the following URLs in the browser to verify whether the website is running properly.
  • Visit http://example.com to access the homepage of the static website. If static website hosting is correctly configured, the following page is displayed.11
  • Visit http://example.com/example.txt to access an object that does not exist in the bucket. If static website hosting is configured, the following page is displayed.404

Step 7: Clean up resources

The resources created in this tutorial are used only to test the environment. We recommend that you clean up the created resources after the test is completed to avoid unnecessary fees.