Testing Cloudfront settings before changing dns

steps.md

Need to test an aws cloudfront distribution before you change the DNS?

Let's imagine I'll be moving a domain (static.stuff.com) to cloudfront. I want to make sure that cloudfront is configured correctly before moving the dns for everyone. You can glue together a simple test with a couple commands locally

1. locate the cloudfront.net domain for your distribution under the AWS cloudfront general tab
2. nslookup xxxxxxxxx.cloudfront.net
3. Pick any of the ip addresses that domain resolves to (there will be several), lets assume 10.10.10.10 was one
4. Edit your /etc/hosts file and add a new line like : 10.10.10.10 static.stuff.com
5. Curl a file that cloudfront should find curl -k -v https://static.stuff.com/some_file.txt
6. Check for x-amz-cf-id in the response indicating cloudfront is in use.

Since I came here through Google, here's a 'one-liner':

curl -vvI -H "Host: thehosttoresolve.com" --resolve thehosttoresolve.com:443:12.12.12.12 https://thehosttoresolve.com/

change thehosttoresolve.com to the domain/host you want to hit (2 places!) and 12.12.12.12 to the cloudfront IP.