deny direct access to file on S3

Question

I am building a django/s3 application with the following behaviour:

1. User logs in
2. User uploads a document -> document goes to S3 (eventually with a UID

Answer 1

Don't make your files public. This will prevent non-authorised users from accessing the files.

Then in your Django app, you can generate urls with a querystring that allows an authorised user to access an S3 file for a limited time.

The amazon docs for querystring request authentication have more information.