AWS - CLI

The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is a unified tool to manage AWS services from the command line. Using the AWS CLI, you can control multiple AWS services, automate tasks, and manage configurations through profiles.

Set up AWS CLI

Install AWS CLI and configure it for the first time:

aws configure

This will prompt for:

AWS Access Key ID
AWS Secret Access Key
Default region name
Default output format

Creating Profiles

You can configure multiple profiles in ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config.

~/.aws/credentials (stores credentials)

[default]
aws_access_key_id = <default-access-key>
aws_secret_access_key = <default-secret-key>

[dev-profile]
aws_access_key_id = <dev-access-key>
aws_secret_access_key = <dev-secret-key>

[prod-profile]
aws_access_key_id = <prod-access-key>
aws_secret_access_key = <prod-secret-key>

~/.aws/config (stores region and output settings)

[default]
region = us-east-1
output = json

[profile dev-profile]
region = us-west-2
output = yaml

[profile prod-profile]
region = eu-west-1
output = json

You can also create profiles via the command line:

aws configure --profile dev-profile

Using Profiles

When running AWS CLI commands, you can specify which profile to use by adding the --profile flag:

aws s3 ls --profile dev-profile

If no profile is specified, the default profile is used.