AWS CLI(Command Line Interface)

Let’s dive into an introduction of how to quickly get you up and running with the AWS CLI to help make you more effective with your AWS interactions.

The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is for managing your AWS services from a terminal session on your own client, allowing you to control and configure multiple AWS services.

So you’ve been using AWS for awhile and finally feel comfortable clicking your way through all the services. However, you may have noticed that there is more to AWS than the default eye-catching browser console.

Maybe it’s time you checked out the AWS CLI (Command Line Interface). The AWS CLI is a unified tool to manage your AWS services from a terminal session on your own client. With just one tool to download and configure, you can control multiple AWS services from the command line and automate them through scripts. In this blog, I will show you how to use AWS CLI and how to install it on your Windows, Linux, Mac, or Unix Operating System.

Here’s how you can download AWS CLI:

1. Install the AWS CLI on Windows
2. Download the appropriate MSI installer:

• Download the AWS CLI MSI installer for Windows (64-bit)
• Download the AWS CLI MSI installer for Windows (32-bit)

1. Run the downloaded MSI installer
2. Follow the instructions that appear

Note: The 64-bit version of the AWS CLI does not currently work with Windows Server 2008 (version 6.0.6002). Please use the 32-bit installer with this version of Windows.

Confirm the installation:
To confirm the installation, use the aws –version command at a command prompt (open the START menu and search for “cmd” if you’re not sure how to find the command prompt).

64 Bit
The CLI installs to C:\Program Files\Amazon\AWSCLI

C:\Program Files\Amazon\AWSCLI>aws --version
aws-cli/1.7.24 Python/2.7.9 Windows/8

32 Bit
The CLI installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\Amazon\AWSCLI

C:\Program Files (x86)\Amazon\AWSCLI>aws --version
aws-cli/1.7.24 Python/2.7.9 Windows/7

Once you have installed AWS CLI on your PC, you’ll need one more step to be able to connect to your AWS account.

For Windows, in my opinion, the…

aws configure

…command is the fastest way to set up your AWS CLI installation.

Through aws configure , the AWS CLI will prompt you for four pieces of information. The first two are required. These are your AWS Access Key ID and AWS Secret Access Key, which serve as your account credentials. (You can generate new credentials within AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) if you do not already have them.) The other information you will need is region and output format, which you can leave as default for the time being.

aws configure
AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
Default region name [None]: us-west-2
Default output format [None]: json

That should be it. One command you can execute from your command prompt is to list any S3 buckets you have. Try the following (provided you have permission to list S3 buckets):

aws s3 ls

Install the AWS CLI on Linux, Mac or Unix Operating System

Prerequisites:

• Linux, OS X, or Unix
• Python 2.6.3 or later

A full overview on prerequisites is outlined on the AWS CLi page.

Check your Python installation:

$ python --version

If Python is not installed on your computer or you would like to install a different version of Python, follow the procedures outlined in the Python user guide documentation.

This post offers a quick guide to installing the Python version of AWS CLI on Windows.

Follow these steps from the command line to install the AWS CLI:

$ curl "https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cli/awscli-bundle.zip" -o "awscli-bundle.zip"
$ unzip awscli-bundle.zip
$ sudo ./awscli-bundle/install -i /usr/local/aws -b /usr/local/bin/aws

Add your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key to ~/.aws/config using this format:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = <access key id>
aws_secret_access_key = <secret access key>
region = us-east-1

Protect the config file:

chmod 600 ~/.aws/config

Optionally, you can set an environment variable pointing to the config file. This is especially important if you want to keep it in a non-standard location. For future convenience, also add this line to your ~/.bashrc file:

export AWS_CONFIG_FILE=$HOME/.aws/config

That should be it. Try out the following from your command prompt and if you have any S3 buckets you should see them listed (again, provided you have permission to list S3 buckets):

aws s3 ls

Here is the basic AWS CLI command structure. Keep in mind that any commands you enter in the CLI will have this standard format:

aws <command> <subcommand> [options and parameters*]

*Parameters can take various types of input values including numbers, strings, lists, maps, and JSON structures.