Installing and Configuring AWS CLI

Overview

Although AWS CLI is a command-line tool used on the terminal, it does not support man pages. So how do you look up commands?

• On Terminal: If you want to look up commands directly on the terminal, you can use:

  • The help keyword: Similar to man pages, AWS CLI will provide a list of commands, meanings, and much information related to the command you are looking for. The help keyword is not required to follow aws, you can place it anywhere you don’t know what to write. For example: aws s3 help, aws s3 ls help,…
  • Sometimes the help keyword provides too much redundant information, and you just want to search for keywords without needing to explain the command, then you can use the ? keyword. The ? keyword will provide related keywords to the command you are searching for. For example: aws ?, aws s3 ?,.. The position of the ? keyword is similar to when using the help keyword, however, the ? keyword can only be placed where a command keyword should be placed. For example: you can use aws s3 ? but you can’t use aws s3 ls ?.

• Web Browser: Although I prefer working with the terminal, I still find using the web for lookup is the easiest. The AWS CLI command lookup page provides very detailed information about the command such as description, options, variables, examples,… very easy to understand. The command lookup page is https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/, if you want to look up commands related to S3 then it is https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/s3, if you want to see details about the aws s3 ls command then it is https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/s3/ls.html. A tip when using it is after finding the command, you should go straight to the examples section to see how to use it, then go back to see its options. Give it a try, it might suit you too.

Content

1. Install AWS CLI

   Use the following commands to install AWS CLI V2:

   curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
   unzip awscliv2.zip
   sudo ./aws/install
   # Remove installation package
   rm -rf awscliv2.zip aws/install
   # Check AWS CLI version
   aws --version
   

   This guide only applies to the Linux operating system.
   For more information on installing AWS CLI on other platforms or updating AWS CLI to version 2, please see here

2. Configure AWS CLI

   To configure AWS CLI, we use the command:

   aws configure
   

   You need to enter 4 values: Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Region, and Default output format.

   

   If you do not know or do not have AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, please refer to the guide Managing access keys for IAM users
   To learn more about the aws configure command or encounter issues, please refer to the guide Authenticate with IAM user credentials.
   Look up AWS region code: at Regions and Zones

   After using the aws configure command, a folder named .aws will be created in the ~ directory (the user’s home directory), including 2 files: config (containing information about the region and default output format) and credentials (containing Access Key ID and Secret Access Key). Instead of using aws configure, you can also use the following commands:

   cat <<EOF | tee ~/.aws/config
   [default]
   region = ap-southeast-1
   output = json
   EOF
   cat <<EOF | tee ~/.aws/credentials
   [default]
   aws_access_key_id = abc
   aws_secret_access_key = abc
   EOF
   

3. Check Configuration

   In addition to configuring AWS CLI with the aws configure command, you can also use environment variables (PATH variables), … so sometimes configuring with aws configure will not be accepted.

   After configuration, you should check again using the command:

   aws configure list
   

   | 👉 In the image below, although the aws configure command has configured the region as ap-southeast-1, AWS CLI still accepts the value us-east-2 from the AWS_REGION variable.

   

References

To learn more about AWS CLI: refer to the aws cli document