Sitefinity AWS CloudFront Invalidation

I have implemented a solution to:

• Intercept Sitefinity page publish events, and
• Trigger AWS CloudFront cache invalidation automatically.

This setup helps keep your CDN cache fresh without manual invalidation.

TL;DR: Sitefinity Page Publish Event → AWS CloudFront Cache Invalidation

☁️ AWS Setup

Before starting, make sure your CloudFront distribution is already up and running.

We will create a middleman IAM user to allow Sitefinity to trigger cache invalidations securely.

✅ Steps:

1. Create a Policy cf-createinvalidation-policy

   • Allow action: cloudfront:CreateInvalidation
   • Resources: * (All distributions)

   

2. Create a User Group cf-usergroup

   • Attach the cf-createinvalidation-policy policy.

3. Create a User cf-middleman

   • Add this user to the cf-usergroup.

4. Generate Access Keys for cf-middleman

   • Choose: Application running outside AWS
   • Name it: cf-sf
   • Save the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key safely.

5. Use the Access Keys in Sitefinity (details below).

🏗️ Sitefinity Setup

I built this as a separate external module — clean, plug-and-play — for any Sitefinity project.

You can follow Progress's guide to Create Widgets in External Assemblies (MVC).

✅ Steps:

1. In your AssemblyInfo.cs file, add at the bottom:

   [assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(SparksEventSubscriber), "Start")]
   

2. Create two files in your module:

   • SparksAppSetting.cs
   • SparksEventSubscriber.cs

3. Create a configuration file named sparksSetting.json:

   {
     "CloudFront": {
       "Profile": "",
       "DistributionId": "",
       "AccessKeyId": "",
       "AccessKey": ""
     }
   }
   

4. Build the project

5. For deployment, copy the following files to your Sitefinity project:

   • AWSSDK.CloudFront.dll
   • AWSSDK.Core.dll (if missing from destination)
   • SparksCloudFront.dll
   • sparksSetting.json

6. Configure your sparksSetting.json with your actual CloudFront credentials and distribution ID.

💡 Result

Once deployed:

• When you publish a page in Sitefinity,
• The system automatically submits cache invalidation requests to CloudFront,
• Ensuring the latest content is served globally.

📌 How to Upgrade or Adjust for Different Sitefinity Versions?

It is very simple:

• Open Manage NuGet Packages in Visual Studio.
• Change the package source to Sitefinity NuGet Source.
• Update the Telerik.Sitefinity.Core package to the desired version.

📚 Documentation / References:

• Sitefinity Community - Cactch Event using API
• Sitefinity - Configure CDN Cache Invalidation
• Sitefinity - IDataEvent
• AWS CloudFront document