forwarding HTTPS from Godaddy to AWS

I typically setup things this way:

  • Register for AWS Route53 DNS and point godaddy to this. I prefer this because it is easy to map AWS resources like S3 etc in DNS if we use Route53. Howto
  • Use Elastic Beanstalk instead of manually configuring EC2 and ELBs and Setup the SSL certs on Beanstalk/ELB. Howto
  • Handle the https redirect in your appserver configuration. Howto

Your current approach of "Forwarding (301)" of https to AWS using godaddy wont work. The forwarding by Godaddy is happening on a forwarding-webserver they are running (not at DNS level). So if they have to accept an https connection and forward, then they need the certificate for this and obviously they dont have your domain's certificate. So the only help godaddy forwarding will do is to forward the http to wherever you need. Typically I use this for "parking" additional domains and not for the primary domain (say xyz.net, xyx.co etc to xyz.com, where the .com is the primary domain). Here users wont go and type https explicitly and so it practically works.

Now, for the primary domain, they need to type https (or you redirect them to https) - In this case, you need to do a CNAME or A-record mapping. This can be done on Route53 (aws) or at Godady itself, by changing the DNS records (not 301 forwarding). Long explanation, hope it clarifies !