A developer has an Amazon S3 bucket containing private user documents. The application must generate a time-limited URL for users to download their own documents without requiring the users to have AWS credentials. Which solution should the developer use?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
Distractor review
Use CloudFront signed URLs with an origin access identity (OAI) to restrict access to the S3 bucket.
CloudFront signed URLs are used to control access to content served through CloudFront, not for direct S3 access via a pre-signed URL. This adds unnecessary complexity.
Best answer
Create a pre-signed URL for each object using the AWS SDK with an appropriate expiration time.
Pre-signed URLs grant temporary access to a specific S3 object. The URL is generated using the developer's AWS credentials and expires after the specified duration, providing secure time-limited access.
Distractor review
Set a bucket policy that allows public read access for the specific users based on their IP addresses.
This would expose the bucket to broader access than intended and does not provide per-user time-limited access. IP-based policies can be used but are less secure and not as granular.
Distractor review
Provide the users with IAM user credentials that have read access to the bucket.
Sharing IAM credentials violates security best practices. Credentials should not be shared with end users; instead, use temporary mechanisms like pre-signed URLs.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
Many certification questions include familiar terms but test a specific constraint. Read the exact wording before choosing an answer that is generally true but wrong for this case.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This question should be treated as a scenario, not a definition check. Identify the problem, the constraint and the best action. Then compare each option against those facts.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
- Use explanations to understand the rule behind the answer.
TExam Day Tips
- Underline the problem statement mentally.
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Related practice questions
Related DVA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer is building a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that will serve static content from an Amazon S3 bucket. The API should cache responses for frequently accessed objects to reduce latency. Which API Gateway feature should the developer enable?
Question 2
A developer is running a web application on multiple Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application needs to store user session state that must be available across all instances. The session data is small and temporary but must survive individual instance failures. Which AWS service should the developer use to store this session state?
Question 3
A developer has an AWS Lambda function that processes messages from an Amazon SQS standard queue. The function is idempotent and currently has a batch size of 10. The developer wants to increase throughput and increases the batch size to 100. After the change, CloudWatch metrics show a significant increase in throttles and the queue backlog is growing. The function's reserved concurrency is set to 10. What is the most effective action to resolve the throttling and improve throughput?
Question 4
A developer is managing an application running on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users report that the application becomes unresponsive after several hours, and restarting the instance temporarily fixes the issue. The developer suspects a memory leak but cannot add custom instrumentation. Which AWS service can collect memory utilization metrics and help identify the memory leak with minimal configuration?
Question 5
A developer is building a serverless web application using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. The application needs to perform complex aggregations on data stored in DynamoDB. Which AWS service should the developer use to perform these aggregations efficiently without reading all the data into Lambda?
Question 6
A developer is building a serverless application using AWS Step Functions to orchestrate multiple AWS Lambda functions. One of the Lambda functions occasionally fails due to a transient error. The developer wants the Step Functions execution to automatically retry the failed task up to three times with exponential backoff. Which configuration should the developer set in the Step Functions state machine definition?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DVA-C02 question test?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Create a pre-signed URL for each object using the AWS SDK with an appropriate expiration time. — Pre-signed URLs allow temporary access to S3 objects without changing bucket policies or sharing AWS credentials. The URL is signed with the developer's IAM credentials and expires after a specified time. CloudFront signed URLs are for content delivered via CloudFront, not direct S3 access. Bucket policies grant broad access, and IAM user credentials cannot be shared with end users. The correct approach is to generate a pre-signed URL using the AWS SDK.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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