How to Set Up CloudFront on AWS for HLS Delivery

Oct 11, 2022

Once the HLS origin is ready, CloudFront becomes the delivery layer that helps distribute the stream to a larger viewer audience. This page is about that second half of the architecture: origin to CDN, not source to ingest.

If you are starting from an SRT contribution feed, the broader route is SRT ingest to HLS to CloudFront delivery. If the HLS path is already working and you now need CDN scale, this is the right page to use.

This walkthrough is longer than most AWS pages because CloudFront configuration is not only about clicking through the wizard. It is about making sure the origin, distribution behavior, and cache logic actually fit live HLS delivery.

What CloudFront is doing in this workflow

CloudFront is the CDN layer in front of the HLS origin. It does not create the live stream. It distributes the playback path more efficiently and helps take viewer load off the origin.

Step 1. Start the CloudFront distribution flow

Open CloudFront in AWS and begin creating a distribution for the live HLS workflow.

Step 2. Point the distribution to the correct origin

The origin should be the HLS playback source you actually want CloudFront to serve. Validate the HLS path first before putting the CDN in front of it.

Step 3. Configure the basic distribution behavior

Set the key behavior options that define how CloudFront will fetch and serve content from the origin.

Step 4. Review the playback path

Before worrying about scale, confirm that the distribution can actually serve the HLS manifests and segments from the origin correctly.

Step 5. Test viewer-facing delivery

Verify that playback through the CloudFront URL behaves as expected and that the origin is not the only path being tested.

Step 6. Tune the distribution for live HLS behavior

Live HLS delivery is more sensitive than static file delivery, so distribution settings and cache behavior matter. This is where many viewer-facing problems begin if defaults are left untouched.

Step 7. Validate the result at scale

If CloudFront is live but playback still feels wrong, the next page to check is HLS fragment caching, because CDN behavior and fragment rules are tightly connected.

Final practical rule

Do not treat CloudFront setup as a generic CDN task. For live HLS, the distribution only works well when the origin is clean, the playback path is validated first, and the cache behavior is tuned for streaming rather than static web content.