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Invalidating Objects (Web Distributions Only)

If you need to remove an object from CloudFront edge caches before it expires, you can do one of the following:

  • Invalidate the object from edge caches. The next time a viewer requests the object, CloudFront returns to the origin to fetch the latest version of the object.
  • Use object versioning to serve a different version of the object that has a different name. For more information, see Updating Existing Objects Using Versioned Object Names.

Important
You can invalidate most types of objects that are served by a web distribution, but you cannot invalidate media files in the Microsoft Smooth Streaming format when you have enabled Smooth Streaming for the corresponding cache behavior. In addition, you cannot invalidate objects that are served by an RTMP distribution.

To invalidate objects, you can specify either the path for individual objects or a path that ends with the * wildcard, which might apply to one object or to many, as shown in the following examples:

  • /images/image1.jpg
  • /images/image*
  • /images/*

Note
If you use the AWS command line interface (CLI) for invalidating objects and you specify a path that includes the * wildcard, you must use quotes (") around the path.
For example: aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id $CDN_DISTRIBUTION_ID --paths "/*"

You can submit a specified number of invalidation paths each month for free. If you submit more than the allotted number of invalidation paths in a month, you pay a fee for each invalidation path that you submit. For more information about the charges for invalidation, see Paying for Object Invalidation.

Topics

Choosing Between Invalidating Objects and Using Versioned Object Names

To control the versions of objects that are served from your distribution, you can either invalidate objects or give them versioned file names. If you'll want to update your objects frequently, we recommend that you primarily use object versioning for the following reasons:

  • Versioning enables you to control which object a request returns even when the user has a version cached either locally or behind a corporate caching proxy. If you invalidate the object, the user might continue to see the old version until it expires from those caches.
  • CloudFront access logs include the names of your objects, so versioning makes it easier to analyze the results of object changes.
  • Versioning provides a way to serve different versions of objects to different users.
  • Versioning simplifies rolling forward and back between object revisions.
  • Versioning is less expensive. You still have to pay for CloudFront to transfer new versions of your objects to edge locations, but you don't have to pay for invalidating objects.

For more information about object versioning, see Updating Existing Objects Using Versioned Object Names.

Determining Which Objects to Invalidate

If you want to invalidate multiple objects such as all of the objects in a directory or all of the objects whose names begin with the same characters, you can include the * wildcard at the end of the invalidation path. For more information about using the * wildcard, see Invalidation paths.

If you want to invalidate selected objects but your users don't necessarily access every object on your origin, you can determine which objects viewers have requested from CloudFront and invalidate only those objects. To determine which objects viewers have requested, enable CloudFront access logging. For more information about access logs, see Access Logs.

Specifying the Objects to Invalidate

Whether you invalidate objects by using the CloudFront console or the CloudFront API, the requirements and limitations for specifying objects are the same. Note the following about specifying the objects that you want to invalidate.

Case sensitivity
Invalidation paths are case sensitive, so /images/image.jpg and /images/Image.jpg specify two different objects.

Changing the URI Using a Lambda Function
If your CloudFront distribution triggers a Lambda function on viewer request events, and if the function changes the URI of the requested object, you must invalidate both URIs to remove the object from CloudFront edge caches:

  • The URI in the viewer request
  • The URI after the function changed it For example, suppose your Lambda function changes the URI for an object from this:
    http://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/index.html
    to a URI that includes a language directory:
    http://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/en/index.html
    To invalidate the object, you must specify the following paths:
  • index.html
  • en/index.html For more information, see Invalidation paths.

Default root object
To invalidate the default root object, specify the path the same way that you specify the path for any other object.

Distribution types
You can invalidate only objects that are associated with a web distribution.

Forwarding cookies
If you configured CloudFront to forward cookies to your origin, CloudFront edge caches might contain several versions of the object. When you invalidate an object, CloudFront invalidates every cached version of the object regardless of its associated cookies. You can't selectively invalidate some versions and not others based on the associated cookies. For more information, see Configuring CloudFront to Cache Objects Based on Cookies.

Forwarding headers
If you configured CloudFront to forward a whitelist of headers to your origin and to cache based on the values of the headers, CloudFront edge caches might contain several versions of the object. When you invalidate an object, CloudFront invalidates every cached version of the object regardless of the header values. You can't selectively invalidate some versions and not others based on header values. (If you configure CloudFront to forward all headers to your origin, CloudFront doesn't cache your objects.) For more information, see Configuring CloudFront to Cache Objects Based on Request Headers.

Forwarding query strings
If you configured CloudFront to forward query strings to your origin, you must include the query strings when invalidating objects, as shown in the following examples:

  • images/image.jpg?parameter1=a
  • images/image.jpg?parameter1=b If client requests include five different query strings for the same object, you can either invalidate the object five times, once for each query string, or you can use the * wildcard in the invalidation path, as shown in the following example:
    /images/image.jpg*
    For more information about using wildcards in the invalidation path, see Invalidation paths. For more information about query strings, see Configuring CloudFront to Cache Based on Query String Parameters. To determine which query strings are in use, you can enable CloudFront logging. For more information, see Access Logs.

Limits
For information about limits on invalidations, see Invalidation Limits.

Microsoft Smooth Streaming files
You cannot invalidate media files in the Microsoft Smooth Streaming format when you have enabled Smooth Streaming for the corresponding cache behavior.

Non-ASCII or unsafe characters in the path
If the path includes non-ASCII characters or unsafe characters as defined in RFC 1783 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt), URL-encode those characters. Do not URL-encode any other characters in the path, or CloudFront will not invalidate the old version of the updated object.

Invalidation paths
The path is relative to the distribution. A leading / is optional. For example, to invalidate the object at http://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/images/image2.jpg, you would specify the following:
/images/image2.jpg
or
images/image2.jpg
You can also invalidate multiple objects simultaneously by using the * wildcard. The *, which replaces 0 or more characters, must be the last character in the invalidation path. Also, if you use the AWS command line interface (CLI) for invalidating objects and you specify a path that includes the * wildcard, you must use quotes (") around the path (like "/*").
The following are some examples:

  • To invalidate all of the objects in a directory:

    /directory-path/*

  • To invalidate a directory, all of its subdirectories, and all of the objects in the directory and subdirectories:

    /directory-path*

  • To invalidate all files that have the same name but different file name extensions, such as logo.jpg, logo.png, and logo.gif:

    /directory-path/file-name.*

  • To invalidate all of the files in a directory for which the file name starts with the same characters (such as all of the files for a video in HLS format), regardless of the file name extension:

    /directory-path/initial-characters-in-file-name*

  • When you configure CloudFront to cache based on query string parameters and you want to invalidate every version of an object:

    /directory-path/file-name.file-name-extension*

  • To invalidate all of the objects in a distribution:

    /* The maximum length of a path is 4,000 characters. You can't use a wildcard within the path; only at the end of the path.
    For information about invalidating objects if you use a Lambda function to change the URI, see Changing the URI Using a Lambda Function.
    The charge to submit an invalidation path is the same regardless of the number of objects you're invalidating: a single object (/images/logo.jpg) or all of the objects that are associated with a distribution (/*). For more information, see Amazon CloudFront Pricing.
    If the invalidation path is a directory and if you have not standardized on a method for specifying directories—with or without a trailing slash (/)—we recommend that you invalidate the directory both with and without a trailing slash, for example, /images and /images/.

Signed URLs
If you are using signed URLs, invalidate an object by including only the portion of the URL before the question mark (?).

Invalidating Objects and Displaying Information about Invalidations

You can use the CloudFront console or CloudFront API actions to create and run an invalidation, display a list of the invalidations that you submitted previously, and display detailed information about an individual invalidation. You can also copy an existing invalidation, edit the list of object paths, and run the edited invalidation.

See the applicable topic:

Invalidating Objects Using the CloudFront Console

To invalidate objects using the CloudFront console, do the following procedure.

To invalidate objects using the CloudFront console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/.

  2. Choose the distribution for which you want to invalidate objects.

  3. Choose Distribution Settings.

  4. Choose the Invalidations tab.

  5. Choose Create Invalidation.

  6. For the objects that you want to invalidate, enter one invalidation path per line. For information about specifying invalidation paths, see Specifying the Objects to Invalidate. Important
    Specify object paths carefully. You can't cancel an invalidation request after you start it.

  7. Choose Invalidate.

Copying, Editing, and Rerunning an Existing Invalidation Using the CloudFront Console

You can copy an invalidation that you created previously, update the list of invalidation paths, and run the updated invalidation. You cannot copy an existing invalidation, update the invalidation paths, and save the updated invalidation without running it.

Important
If you copy an invalidation that is still in progress, update the list of invalidation paths, and run the updated invalidation, CloudFront will not stop or delete the invalidation that you copied. If any invalidation paths appear in the original and in the copy, CloudFront will try to invalidate the objects twice, and both invalidations will count against your maximum number of free invalidations for the month. If you've already reached the maximum number of free invalidations, you'll be charged for both invalidations of each object. For more information, see Invalidation Limits.

To copy, edit, and rerun an existing invalidation using the CloudFront console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/.

  2. Choose the distribution that contains the invalidation that you want to copy.

  3. Choose Distribution Settings.

  4. Choose the Invalidations tab.

  5. Choose the invalidation that you want to copy.

    If you aren't sure which invalidation you want to copy, you can choose an invalidation and choose Details to display detailed information about that invalidation.

  6. Choose Copy.

  7. Update the list of invalidation paths if applicable.

  8. Choose Invalidate.

Canceling Invalidations

When you submit an invalidation request to CloudFront, CloudFront forwards the request to all edge locations within a few seconds, and each edge location starts processing the invalidation immediately. As a result, you can't cancel an invalidation after you submit it.

Listing Invalidations (Console)

Using the console, you can display a list of the last 100 invalidations that you've created and run for a distribution. If you want to get a list of more than 100 invalidations, use the ListInvalidations API action. For more information, see ListInvalidations in the Amazon CloudFront API Reference.

To list invalidations using the CloudFront console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/.

  2. Choose the distribution for which you want to display a list of invalidations.

  3. Choose Distribution Settings.

  4. Choose the Invalidations tab.

Displaying Information about an Invalidation Using the CloudFront Console

You can display detailed information about an invalidation, including distribution ID, invalidation ID, the status of the invalidation, the date and time that the invalidation was created, and a complete list of the invalidation paths.

To display information about an invalidation using the CloudFront console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the CloudFront console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/.

  2. Choose the distribution that contains the invalidation that you want to display detailed information for.

  3. Choose Distribution Settings.

  4. Choose the Invalidations tab.

  5. Choose the applicable invalidation.

  6. Choose Details.

Invalidating Objects and Displaying Information about Invalidations Using the CloudFront API

For information about invalidating objects and about displaying information about invalidations using the CloudFront API, see the applicable topic in the Amazon CloudFront API Reference:

Third-Party Tools for Invalidating Objects

In addition to the invalidation methods provided by CloudFront, several third-party tools provide ways to invalidate objects. For a list of tools, see Invalidating Objects.

Invalidation Limits

If you're invalidating objects individually, you can have invalidation requests for up to 3,000 objects per distribution in progress at one time. This can be one invalidation request for up to 3,000 objects, up to 3,000 requests for one object each, or any other combination that doesn't exceed 3,000 objects. For example, you can submit 30 invalidation requests that invalidate 100 objects each. As long as all 30 invalidation requests are still in progress, you can't submit any more invalidation requests. If you exceed the limit, CloudFront returns an error message.

If you're using the * wildcard, you can have requests for up to 15 invalidation paths in progress at one time. You can also have invalidation requests for up to 3,000 individual objects per distribution in progress at the same time; the limit on wildcard invalidation requests is independent of the limit on invalidating objects individually.

Paying for Object Invalidation

The first 1,000 invalidation paths that you submit per month are free; you pay for each invalidation path over 1,000 in a month. An invalidation path can be for a single object (such as /images/logo.jpg) or for multiple objects (such as /images/*). A path that includes the * wildcard counts as one path even if it causes CloudFront to invalidate thousands of objects.

This limit of 1000 invalidation paths per month applies to the total number of invalidation paths across all of the distributions that you create with one AWS account. For example, if you use the AWS account [email protected] to create three distributions, and you submit 600 invalidation paths for each distribution in a given month (for a total of 1,800 invalidation paths), AWS will charge you for 800 invalidation paths in that month. For specific information about invalidation pricing, see Amazon CloudFront Pricing. For more information about invalidation paths, see Invalidation paths.