Generate Expiring Amazon S3 Link

Last updated on: July 3, 2012

You don't have to make files on Amazon S3 public (they aren't by default). But you can generate special keys to allow access to private files. These keys are passed through the URL and can be made to expire.

<?php 

  if(!function_exists('el_crypto_hmacSHA1')){
    /**
    * Calculate the HMAC SHA1 hash of a string.
    *
    * @param string $key The key to hash against
    * @param string $data The data to hash
    * @param int $blocksize Optional blocksize
    * @return string HMAC SHA1
    */
    function el_crypto_hmacSHA1($key, $data, $blocksize = 64) {
        if (strlen($key) > $blocksize) $key = pack('H*', sha1($key));
        $key = str_pad($key, $blocksize, chr(0x00));
        $ipad = str_repeat(chr(0x36), $blocksize);
        $opad = str_repeat(chr(0x5c), $blocksize);
        $hmac = pack( 'H*', sha1(
        ($key ^ $opad) . pack( 'H*', sha1(
          ($key ^ $ipad) . $data
        ))
      ));
        return base64_encode($hmac);
    }
  }

  if(!function_exists('el_s3_getTemporaryLink')){
    /**
    * Create temporary URLs to your protected Amazon S3 files.
    *
    * @param string $accessKey Your Amazon S3 access key
    * @param string $secretKey Your Amazon S3 secret key
    * @param string $bucket The bucket (bucket.s3.amazonaws.com)
    * @param string $path The target file path
    * @param int $expires In minutes
    * @return string Temporary Amazon S3 URL
    * @see http://awsdocs.s3.amazonaws.com/S3/20060301/s3-dg-20060301.pdf
    */
    
    function el_s3_getTemporaryLink($accessKey, $secretKey, $bucket, $path, $expires = 5) {
      // Calculate expiry time
      $expires = time() + intval(floatval($expires) * 60);
      // Fix the path; encode and sanitize
      $path = str_replace('%2F', '/', rawurlencode($path = ltrim($path, '/')));
      // Path for signature starts with the bucket
      $signpath = '/'. $bucket .'/'. $path;
      // S3 friendly string to sign
      $signsz = implode("\n", $pieces = array('GET', null, null, $expires, $signpath));
      // Calculate the hash
      $signature = el_crypto_hmacSHA1($secretKey, $signsz);
      // Glue the URL ...
      $url = sprintf('http://%s.s3.amazonaws.com/%s', $bucket, $path);
      // ... to the query string ...
      $qs = http_build_query($pieces = array(
        'AWSAccessKeyId' => $accessKey,
        'Expires' => $expires,
        'Signature' => $signature,
      ));
      // ... and return the URL!
      return $url.'?'.$qs;
    }
  }

?>

Usage

<?php echo el_s3_getTemporaryLink('your-access-key', 'your-secret-key', 'bucket-name', '/path/to/file.mov'); ?>

Reference URL