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What security work remains yours on AWS?
With Amazon EC2, AWS secures the underlying cloud infrastructure; the customer secures what runs in the cloud. AWS identifies instance network access, connection credentials, the guest operating system and installed software, and attached IAM roles and their permissions as customer responsibilities. Hosting an application on AWS does not automatically patch or secure the application. See AWS’s EC2 shared-responsibility guidance.
Make ownership explicit. Assign people or teams to maintain the operating system and application, review access and permissions, monitor activity, and respond to incidents. AWS recommends regular operating-system and application updates, least-permissive security group rules, and using identity federation and IAM roles where possible. Its EC2 best-practices guide also identifies vulnerability scanning and posture-monitoring services as available options; using them does not replace patching or access review. See AWS’s EC2 best practices.
Separate public entry points from internal services
Design the network around the paths your chosen deployment actually needs. Identify which component accepts public traffic and which application, worker, cache, and database components should be reachable only from other approved components. Do not assume a port map or topology shared by Mastodon, Discourse, and Chatwoot: verify the current installation guidance for the specific application version and architecture you intend to run.
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- Use VPC placement and security groups to restrict inbound and internal connections to the necessary sources and destinations. Avoid broad rules where a narrower source address or approved workload can be specified.
- Keep databases off public access paths when the architecture permits, and allow connections only from approved application components. AWS’s RDS security guidance recommends running a database in a VPC, using security groups to control which addresses or EC2 instances can connect, managing permissions with IAM, and using TLS for supported database engines. See AWS’s RDS security guidance.
- Document any public-facing service and why it must be public. Recheck security group rules when you change the application topology or add a proxy, worker, or managed service.
Protect administrator access and workload credentials
Use individual administrator identities rather than shared accounts, and enable MFA for AWS account access. AWS also recommends TLS for communications with AWS and CloudTrail for recording API and user activity. These controls help protect administrative access and provide activity records; they do not by themselves secure application logins or prove that a deployment is safe. See AWS’s EC2 data-protection guidance.
For an application that needs to access S3, prefer an IAM role attached to its workload over long-lived AWS access keys stored in application configuration or on the EC2 instance. Scope permissions to the required bucket and actions, and review the role’s permissions and trust relationship when the workload changes. AWS recommends IAM roles for application access and advises against storing long-lived credentials in workloads. See AWS’s S3 security best practices.
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Protect data in transit and at rest
Use TLS for communications on the paths that support it, including public web traffic and supported database connections. AWS recommends TLS for communications with AWS and for supported RDS database engines. Decide which component terminates public TLS and how traffic is protected between components based on the architecture you have verified; the available application references do not establish one universal proxy or TLS configuration for all three products.
For S3, AWS recommends encryption at rest, policy-based access, HTTPS-only access through bucket-policy conditions, and monitoring or auditing with CloudTrail and other detective controls. The same AWS guidance says to disable ACLs unless a use case requires per-object access control. This general recommendation needs an application-specific compatibility check for Mastodon, whose documentation says its AWS S3 configuration requires ACL support (see the Mastodon section below).
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AWS’s S3 guidance reports that, beginning in April 2026, SSE-C is disabled by default for new general-purpose buckets, and that a workload specifically requiring SSE-C must enable it deliberately. This is a service behavior that can change: verify the current AWS S3 guidance and your bucket settings rather than assuming a default.
Apply the controls each application actually documents
| Application | What the available official documentation establishes | What to verify for your deployment |
|---|---|---|
| Mastodon | Official documentation describes S3-compatible object storage, storage behavior for media, and backup priorities. | Check the current Mastodon configuration and storage requirements, object visibility and policy, media-host changes, and backup and restore scope. |
| Discourse | The official self-hosting index links to production installation, S3-compatible upload storage, HTTPS/SSL, and backup guidance. | Consult the current linked procedures for your chosen deployment. The index alone does not establish detailed hardening settings, backup inclusion defaults, or a specific AWS architecture. |
| Chatwoot | The reviewed sources do not establish Chatwoot-specific AWS deployment or hardening requirements. | Obtain and verify current official Chatwoot self-hosting and environment-configuration guidance before setting exposure, secrets, database or cache access, storage, upgrades, or backup procedures. |
Mastodon: check S3 access, media behavior, and backup scope
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There is a specific compatibility tension to resolve: Mastodon’s environment configuration documentation says its AWS S3 configuration requires ACL support, while AWS’s S3 best practices recommend disabling ACLs except where needed. Do not disable ACLs automatically or leave broad permissions in place by default. Check the current Mastodon version’s documented behavior against the bucket’s settings, test the required operations, and use the narrowest compatible access policy.
- Mastodon warns that served files must not be directory-listed and that CORS headers are needed for some UI functionality. Configure and check these behaviors against its current object-storage documentation.
- If you change the media host, update the Content-Security-Policy in advance. Mastodon notes that service workers may cache its value for up to a week, so a change can take time to reach clients.
- Mastodon lists PostgreSQL, application secrets, uploaded files, and Redis as backup priorities, in that order, and recommends off-site backups. Its documented plan does not require backing up media as local server files when those files are already in external object storage such as S3. Object storage does not, on its own, back up the database or application secrets. See Mastodon’s backup guidance.
Discourse: follow its current self-hosting procedures
Use the Discourse self-hosting documentation index to locate the current production installation, S3-compatible upload storage, HTTPS/SSL, and backup procedures. Treat those as implementation references to review for your selected setup, not as evidence that a particular AWS design or hardening configuration is mandatory. The index by itself does not establish detailed settings or which data a particular backup includes.
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Chatwoot: verify its official guidance before configuring it
The available sources do not establish Chatwoot-specific AWS requirements. Do not copy Mastodon’s S3 ACL behavior or Discourse’s deployment assumptions to Chatwoot. Before deployment, consult current official Chatwoot self-hosted installation and environment-configuration documentation to determine supported topology, exposed services, secret handling, TLS assumptions, database and cache access, object storage, upgrades, and backup and restore procedures. Until those details are verified, avoid treating any of them as established requirements for Chatwoot.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Make backups recoverable, not just available
Choose backup coverage from the application’s own current documentation, then keep copies off-site where the application guidance recommends it. For Mastodon, include the documented priorities—PostgreSQL, application secrets, uploaded files, and Redis—and account for externally stored media separately from local files. For Discourse and Chatwoot, verify current official procedures rather than assuming that a database dump, server image, or object-storage bucket contains everything required to restore the service.
Quick Recap
- Record what is backed up, where it is stored, who can access it, and how long copies are retained.
- Protect backup access with permissions distinct from ordinary application access, and include secrets in the recovery plan without exposing them in broadly accessible storage.
- Document a restore procedure for the exact application version and architecture. A backup that has not been restored and checked is not evidence that recovery will work.
Use a deployment checklist before going live
- Choose and document the architecture. Identify public entry points, private application and data paths, self-managed versus AWS-managed components, and who owns each component’s updates and incident response.
- Restrict network access. Review VPC placement and security group rules for compute and database resources; allow only the necessary paths, based on verified application documentation.
- Set up identities and logging. Use individual administrator access with MFA, scoped workload IAM roles rather than embedded long-lived AWS keys, and CloudTrail activity logging.
- Configure data protections. Use TLS on supported paths and suitable encryption and access policies for stored data. For Mastodon media on S3, resolve the ACL compatibility requirement before choosing bucket settings.
- Assign patching and review owners. Set a process for operating-system and application updates, permission reviews, and monitoring rather than relying on the AWS host alone.
- Confirm backup and recovery coverage. Follow the application’s current backup guidance, store off-site copies where appropriate, and verify the restore procedure for your actual deployment.
- Recheck changes. Revisit network rules, IAM permissions, storage policy, and recovery documentation when you change versions, services, media configuration, or topology.
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