AWS CLI Basics¶

The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is an open-source tool that enables you to interact with and automate AWS services directly from your terminal.

1. Installation¶

macOS (Homebrew)Linux (x86_64)Windows (MSI Installer)

brew install awscli

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install

Download and execute the official installer from:
https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi

Verify your installation:

aws --version

2. Configuration¶

Option A: Standard Configuration (Access Keys)¶

aws configure

You will be prompted for: 1. AWS Access Key ID: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE 2. AWS Secret Access Key: wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY 3. Default region name: us-east-1 (or your preferred region) 4. Default output format: json (or table / text)

# Configure SSO session once
aws configure sso

# Daily fast authentication via browser popup
aws sso login

3. Essential Everyday AWS CLI Commands¶

Identity & Account¶

# Verify who you are authenticated as
aws sts get-caller-identity

Amazon S3¶

# List all buckets in the account
aws s3 ls

# List contents of a specific bucket
aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket/

# Upload a file
aws s3 cp document.pdf s3://my-bucket/docs/

# Sync a local directory to S3
aws s3 sync ./build s3://my-bucket/website/

# Delete an object
aws s3 rm s3://my-bucket/docs/document.pdf

Amazon EC2¶

# List all running instances
aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running"

# Start an instance
aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-0123456789abcdef0

# Stop an instance
aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-0123456789abcdef0

AWS Lambda¶

# List all Lambda functions
aws lambda list-functions

# Invoke a function synchronously (AWS CLI v2 requires raw-in-base64-out for string payloads)
aws lambda invoke \
  --function-name processOrder \
  --cli-binary-format raw-in-base64-out \
  --payload '{"orderId": 123}' \
  response.json

4. Working with Multiple Profiles¶

Manage multiple AWS accounts (e.g., Development, Staging, Production) effortlessly using named profiles:

# Configure a named profile
aws configure --profile dev-account

# Execute a command against a specific profile
aws s3 ls --profile dev-account

# Set the active profile for your current terminal session
export AWS_PROFILE=dev-account