The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is an open source tool that enables you to interact with AWS services using commands in your command-line shell. With minimal configuration, the AWS CLI allows you to start running commands that implement functionality equivalent to that provided by the browser-based AWS Management Console from the command prompt in your terminal program:
- Linux shells – Use common shell programs such as bash, zsh, and tcsh to run commands in Linux or macOS.
- Windows command line – On Windows, run commands at the Windows command prompt or in PowerShell.
- Remotely – Run commands on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances through a remote terminal program such as PuTTY or SSH, or with AWS Systems Manager.
Install AWS CLI
The installation process is straight forward. Just follow along the official AWS instructions:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/getting-started-install.html
Afterwards test if it works by simply executing the following command:
aws --version
Your output should look like this:
ws-cli/2.5.5 Python/3.9.11 Darwin/21.4.0 exe/x86_64 prompt/off
AWS User Credentials
In AWS, an access key is a type of security credential that is associated with an identity. So, to make an API call through AWS Cli, first you will create an identity in AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). To manage authentication and authorisation for people applications, IAM provides users, groups and roles as identities that you can manage. If you haven’t already created an user account, take a look at IAM article:
Just make sure that your user account has an access key for programmatic access.
Create a User Access Key
If you forgot or lost your access key but an already existing user account, here is a quick instruction how to create a new one. First, login into your AWS console and call the service IAM. On the left navigation bar click on Access management and select Users. Look for your target user account and click on it, you will be navigated to the summary page. Select the tab Security credentials. Scroll down a bit till you see the button Create access key. Execute it and write down your access key ID as well as the AWS secret access key.
Configure AWS Cli
To store your access credentials locally I recommend two different options. The first on is to create a configuration file and store them there. Therefore navigate to
cd ~/.aws
and create the configuration file, if not already done and edit it.
touch configuration && nano configuration
Then place your credentials inside the file:
[default]
aws_access_key_id = <your access id>
aws_secret_access_key = <your access key>
Another option is to let them be stored by AWS Cli directly. You have to execute the following command:
aws configure
and go through the settings, be aware that you also have to select your region of interest.
If done everything correct, you should now be able to communicate with your AWS environment through AWS Cli. You can test it for example by listing your S3 buckets:
aws s3 ls