Amazon Web Services (AWS), like Windows operating systems, can be configured using PowerShell. This environment is known as the AWS Command Line Environment or, more commonly, AWS Command Line Interface.
AWS CLI allows for you to interact with AWS via a command prompt. However, unlike PowerShell it must be manually deployed.
There are different methods for installing AWS CLI and preparing it for use. You can use the AWS CLI from Windows by downloading and running the AWS CLI MSI Installer for Windows. You can also download AWS CLI to other platforms from this Web page.
The AWS CLI MSI installer uses a wizard-based installation, just like other.MSI files. After launching the.MSI file you will be taken the wizard’s welcome screen. You will be asked to accept the license agreement by clicking Next. After doing so, click Next.
You will now be prompted to select the features you want to install. Figure 1 illustrates this screen. Accept the defaults and click Next. The entire installation process takes only a few seconds. Once the process is complete, click Finish.
Figure 1: Accept default installation options and then click Next. The AWS CLI interface has been installed but is not yet ready for use. If you’ve ever used PowerShell for connecting to Microsoft Azure, you’ll know that you must manually authenticate PowerShell in the Azure environment. Similar to PowerShell, AWS CLI works the same way. To access your AWS environment, configure AWS CLI to authenticate to the AWS cloud.
To authenticate to the AWS cloud, two pieces of information are required: the access key ID (or secret access key) and the access key ID (or access key ID). The secret access key works in a similar way to a password. The authentication process uses PKI encryption, which is different from a standard password.
To use AWS CLI, the first thing you need to do is generate the access key ID (and secret key) Log in to AWS console using your normal credentials. Go to the console home and click Security & Identity. Next, click on IAM as shown in Figure 2.
[Click on the image to see a larger version.] Figure 2: Click the IAM link. Click on Users and then click your username. It is possible that there are no user accounts depending on how you use AWS. Click on the Create New Account button and follow the prompts for creating a user account. This is necessary because access keys are associated to an account.
Click on the account and then click the Manage Access Keys button. The screen that appears should show the access key ID. Take a note of the access code ID and click on the Create Access Key button. When prompted, you can download the credential file.
Open an elevated Command Prompt window and navigate to C.Program FilesAmazonAWSCLI. Next, type this command:
AWS ConfigureAWS will ask you to enter four pieces information. Your secret access key and access key ID will be required. These can be found in your.CSV file. It is a good idea, rather than typing them manually, to copy and paste these values from the.CSV format.
The region is the next piece of information you will need to provide. I use US-East-1, however you should use the appropriate region for your geographical location. You will also need to specify the default output format. Personally, I prefer text. However, some people prefer JSON.
Figure 3 shows you how the process looks. Figure 3 shows the process. I left the inputs empty for security reasons. However, you can use the scr.
