AWS S3 and CloudFront Errors

[Gaius Kong]

I  want to set up CloudFront and automatic site backups to S3. Would appreciate tremendously if you could comment and correct me:

1. In ACP--Files--Storage Settings--Configuration--Storage method (edit File System), I select Amazon S3, put the Bucket name and AWS end point.

2. I entered the Bucket name, endpoint, the access and secret keys, then my site is immediately broken. 

What am doing incorrectly? Thank you.

 

[Rhett]

Can you clarify if you are wanting to move your attachments to use S3 instead of local data storage?

You said "automatic site backups to S3", which isn't related to file storage, please clarify.

 

[Gaius Kong]

Thank you Rhett. The site was broken due to having entered a custom url in the Storage method setting; the custom cdn url was not configured properly, so the theme broke down. I manually deleted the url, saved, and the site went back on. 

Now I have CloudFront successfully enabled, which significantly improved access speed for users in China. Now there are two storage method enabled, which is the default, and the other is S3, in which all files are accessible from S3.

Questions:

1. Would you mention a few keywords or provide a few links on the best/recommended practice of using IPS?  (Say, you may simply mention: "look into Redis")   

2.I wish to have automatic backups of my production site to S3 (similar to what WP via Updraftplus plugin can do). If the site is broken, in the case of WP, I can use one of my backups in S3 and restore my site. How may I do the same to IPS?  

[bfarber]

If you set up Cloudfront, you'll need to edit your S3 configuration and supply a custom URL to your Cloudfront distribution.

There is no way to have automatic backups of files or database data to S3 from within the software. You would need to configure this outside of the software.

[Gaius Kong]

I set up Redis, and after uploading the constants.php file, the site crashes:

An error occurred (500 Error)

We're sorry, but a temporary technical error has occurred which means we cannot display this site right now. 

You can try again by clicking the button below, or try again later. 

I can easily restore it by moving the constants.php away from the installation folder. The content of the constants.php looks fine. Not sure what is the issue.  The guide on redis this forum provides is vague. I guess these are common issues and a better documentation would help a lot of people starting using IPS.