Force CloudFront distribution/file update

Good news. Amazon finally added an Invalidation Feature. See the API Reference.

This is a sample request from the API Reference:

POST /2010-08-01/distribution/[distribution ID]/invalidation HTTP/1.0
Host: cloudfront.amazonaws.com
Authorization: [AWS authentication string]
Content-Type: text/xml

<InvalidationBatch>
   <Path>/image1.jpg</Path>
   <Path>/image2.jpg</Path>
   <Path>/videos/movie.flv</Path>
   <CallerReference>my-batch</CallerReference>
</InvalidationBatch>

As of March 19, Amazon now allows Cloudfront's cache TTL to be 0 seconds, thus you (theoretically) should never see stale objects. So if you have your assets in S3, you could simply go to AWS Web Panel => S3 => Edit Properties => Metadata, then set your "Cache-Control" value to "max-age=0".

This is straight from the API documentation:

To control whether CloudFront caches an object and for how long, we recommend that you use the Cache-Control header with the max-age= directive. CloudFront caches the object for the specified number of seconds. (The minimum value is 0 seconds.)

With the Invalidation API, it does get updated in a few of minutes.
Check out PHP Invalidator.

Automated update setup in 5 mins

OK, guys. The best possible way for now to perform automatic CloudFront update (invalidation) is to create Lambda function that will be triggered every time when any file is uploaded to S3 bucket (a new one or rewritten).

Even if you never used lambda functions before, it is really easy -- just follow my step-by-step instructions and it will take just 5 mins:

Step 1

Go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda/home and click Create a lambda function

Step 2

Click on Blank Function (custom)

Step 3

Click on empty (stroked) box and select S3 from combo

Step 4

Select your Bucket (same as for CloudFront distribution)

Step 5

Set an Event Type to "Object Created (All)"

Step 6

Set Prefix and Suffix or leave it empty if you don't know what it is.

Step 7

Check Enable trigger checkbox and click Next

Step 8

Name your function (something like: YourBucketNameS3ToCloudFrontOnCreateAll)

Step 9

Select Python 2.7 (or later) as Runtime

Step 10

Paste following code instead of default python code:

from __future__ import print_function

import boto3
import time

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    for items in event["Records"]:
        path = "/" + items["s3"]["object"]["key"]
        print(path)
        client = boto3.client('cloudfront')
        invalidation = client.create_invalidation(DistributionId='_YOUR_DISTRIBUTION_ID_',
            InvalidationBatch={
            'Paths': {
            'Quantity': 1,
            'Items': [path]
            },
            'CallerReference': str(time.time())
            })

Step 11

Open https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/home in a new browser tab and copy your CloudFront distribution ID for use in next step.

Step 12

Return to lambda tab and paste your distribution id instead of _YOUR_DISTRIBUTION_ID_ in the Python code. Keep surrounding quotes.

Step 13

Set handler: lambda_function.lambda_handler

Step 14

Click on the role combobox and select Create a custom role. New tab in browser will be opened.

Step 15

Click view policy document, click edit, click OK and replace role definition with following (as is):

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "logs:CreateLogGroup",
        "logs:CreateLogStream",
        "logs:PutLogEvents"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:logs:*:*:*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
          "cloudfront:CreateInvalidation"
      ],
      "Resource": [
          "*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Step 16

Click allow. This will return you to a lambda. Double check that role name that you just created is selected in the Existing role combobox.

Step 17

Set Memory (MB) to 128 and Timeout to 5 sec.

Step 18

Click Next, then click Create function

Step 19

You are good to go! Now on, each time you will upload/reupload any file to S3, it will be evaluated in all CloudFront Edge locations.

PS - When you are testing, make sure that your browser is loading images from CloudFront, not from local cache.

PSS - Please note, that only first 1000 files invalidation per month are for free, each invalidation over limit cost $0.005 USD. Also additional charges for Lambda function may apply, but it is extremely cheap.