Generate your access keys and bucket in Amazon S3

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Step-by-step guide to configure Amazon S3 and obtain the necessary credentials and settings to upload files.

Step 1: Get Your Bucket Region

1. Log in to the AWS Management Console. If you don’t have an account, you must create one.

2. In the top search bar, search for and select S3.

3. Click on your bucket name (or create a new one by clicking Create bucket).

   

4. If you are creating a new bucket, look at the AWS Region field at the top of the form to find the region code inside the parentheses (e.g., us-east-1, us-east-2 o sa-east-1). Just fill in your bucket name. Paste the region code and bucket name into the theme fields.

   

5. Click on Create bucket.

Step 2: Create an IAM User and Generate Access Keys

For security reasons, AWS requires creating an IAM user instead of using the main root account.

1. In the top search bar, search for and select IAM > Users. Then click on Create user.

   

2. Enter a username (for example: s3-uploader-user) and click Next.

3. Under Permissions options, select Attach policies directly.

4. Search for AmazonS3FullAccess, select its checkbox, and click Next > Create user.

   

5. Click on the newly created user from the list.

6. Select the Security credentials tab.

7. Scroll down to the Access keys section and click Create access key.

   

8. Select the Application running outside AWS option and click Next > Create access key.

9. Copy both the Access Key and the Secret Access Key.

Important: The Secret Access Key is only displayed once. Make sure to copy it or download the .csv file immediately.

Step 3: Configure Bucket Permissions for Public Downloads

By default, Amazon S3 blocks public downloads. To allow users to download uploaded files, configure public access and add a bucket policy:

1. Go back to S3 and select your bucket.

2. Open the Permissions tab.

3. Scroll down to Block public access (bucket settings), click Edit, uncheck the Block all public access checkbox, and save changes by typing confirm.

4. Scroll down to Bucket policy, click Edit, and paste the following policy (replace YOUR-BUCKET-NAME with your actual bucket name):

   {
     "Version": "2012-10-17",
     "Statement": [
       {
         "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": "*",
         "Action": "s3:GetObject",
         "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::YOUR-BUCKET-NAME/*"
       }
     ]
   }

   

5. Click Save changes. Your bucket is now ready to serve public downloads via standard S3 URLs.

Remember that the “Objects” tab contains all the files that will be automatically uploaded.