---
title: "CDN"
description: "E2E CDN serves your site's files from edge locations near each visitor, from your own server or an E2E Object Storage bucket."
content_type: "overview"
product: "cdn"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/cdn/"
---

# CDN

E2E CDN keeps copies of your site's files, such as images, scripts, style sheets, and videos, at
edge locations around the world, and serves each visitor from one near them. It fetches a file from
your origin only when the edge has no fresh copy. Your origin is where the original files live:
your own web server, or a bucket in E2E Object Storage.

You find CDN in MyAccount under **Network**. Its list page is **Manage CDN Services**.

## What you can do

- [Request CDN](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/request-cdn/) for your account, once.
- [Create a distribution](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/create-a-distribution/) for your own server, and
  choose a CDN plan the first time.
- [Serve a bucket through the CDN](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/serve-a-bucket-through-the-cdn/) with
  **Add to CDN**.
- [Change distribution settings](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/change-distribution-settings/): the basic
  settings, the origin, and how files are cached.
- [Clear the cache](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/clear-the-cache/) so visitors get a file you changed.
- [View bandwidth usage and monitoring](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/view-bandwidth-usage-and-monitoring/)
  for one distribution or all of them.
- [Change your CDN plan](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/change-your-cdn-plan/).
- [Disable or delete a distribution](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/disable-or-delete-a-distribution/), and
  enable it again.

## Turn CDN on for your account

Your account asks E2E to turn CDN on before it creates its first distribution.
**Manage CDN Services** shows **Request CDN** in place of **Create CDN** until E2E approves the
request. You send the
request once, with a short reason, and it covers every project in the account. See
[Request CDN](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/request-cdn/).

## Distributions and origins

A distribution is what you create to serve files through the CDN. Each distribution has one
origin and one set of cache settings, and its own address, the **Distribution URL**. The
Distribution URL is made from the first part of your origin's domain name and 10 random letters and
digits. For the origin `static.example.com`, it starts with `static`. A file at
`/images/logo.png` on your origin is then served at `https://<distribution-url>/images/logo.png`,
where `<distribution-url>` is the distribution's Distribution URL.

You can create a distribution in two ways:

- From **Manage CDN Services**, with **Create CDN**, for an origin you name yourself, such as your
  web server at `static.example.com`. See
  [Create a distribution](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/create-a-distribution/).
- From a bucket in Object Storage, with **Add to CDN**, which fills in the bucket as the origin.
  See [Serve a bucket through the CDN](/myaccount/cdn/how-to/serve-a-bucket-through-the-cdn/).

## State and status

Each distribution shows a **State** and a **Status**, and they answer different questions:

- **State** is **InProgress** while a change is deploying to the edge locations, and **Deployed**
  once it is done.
- **Status** is **Enabled** when the distribution serves requests, and **Disabled** when it does
  not.

A new distribution shows **InProgress** and **Disabled** while it deploys, then **Deployed** and
**Enabled**. Creating, editing, enabling, and disabling each take up to 30 minutes to deploy, and
**Deployed** can show up to 15 minutes after the change is live.

## The list and the details

**Manage CDN Services** lists your distributions. **Search CDN** finds one by its origin domain name
or its Distribution URL, and you can tag a distribution from its row and filter the list by tag.
Click a distribution to open its details: **Basic Details**, **Origin Detail**, **Cache Behaviour**,
**Invalidations**, **Bandwidth Usage**, and **Monitoring**. **Basic Details** shows the
**Distribution ID**, which names the distribution in the API.

## Where to start

To serve your first files through the CDN, follow [Get started with
CDN](/myaccount/cdn/get-started/). For fixes, see [Troubleshooting
CDN](/myaccount/cdn/troubleshooting/cdn/); for short answers, see [CDN FAQ](/myaccount/cdn/faq/),
including [how CDN is billed](/myaccount/cdn/faq/#how-is-cdn-billed).