Configuring AWS CLI: Managing Your AWS CLI Configuration (with examples)
Introduction
The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) provides a command-line interface for interacting with AWS services. The aws configure command is used to manage the configuration for the AWS CLI. In this article, we will explore eight different use cases of the aws configure command with code examples.
Use Case 1: Configure AWS CLI Interactively
aws configure
Motivation: Use this command to interactively configure the AWS CLI. It will prompt you to provide the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, default region, and output format.
Explanation:
access_key: The Access Key ID associated with your AWS account.secret_key: The Secret Access Key associated with your AWS account.region: The default region you want to use in the AWS CLI.output: The default output format you want to use in the AWS CLI (e.g., json, text).
Example Output:
AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIA************
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Default region name [None]: us-west-2
Default output format [None]: json
Use Case 2: Configure a Named Profile
aws configure --profile profile_name
Motivation: Use this command to interactively configure a named profile for the AWS CLI. This is useful when you want to use different sets of AWS credentials for different purposes.
Explanation:
access_key: The Access Key ID associated with your AWS account.secret_key: The Secret Access Key associated with your AWS account.region: The default region you want to use in the AWS CLI.output: The default output format you want to use in the AWS CLI (e.g., json, text).profile_name: The name of the profile you want to create or update.
Example Output:
AWS Access Key ID [None]: AKIA************
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Default region name [None]: us-west-2
Default output format [None]: json
Use Case 3: Display the Value From a Specific Configuration Variable
aws configure get name
Motivation: Use this command to display the value of a specific configuration variable from the AWS CLI configuration.
Explanation:
name: The name of the configuration variable whose value you want to display.
Example Output:
us-west-2
Use Case 4: Display the Value for a Configuration Variable in a Specific Profile
aws configure get name --profile profile_name
Motivation: Use this command to display the value of a configuration variable in a specific named profile.
Explanation:
name: The name of the configuration variable whose value you want to display.profile_name: The name of the profile from which you want to retrieve the configuration variable value.
Example Output:
us-east-1
Use Case 5: Set the Value of a Specific Configuration Variable
aws configure set name value
Motivation: Use this command to manually set the value of a specific configuration variable.
Explanation:
name: The name of the configuration variable you want to set.value: The value you want to set for the configuration variable.
Example Output: No output is displayed if the command succeeds.
Use Case 6: Set the Value of a Configuration Variable in a Specific Profile
aws configure set name value --profile profile_name
Motivation: Use this command to set the value of a configuration variable in a specific named profile.
Explanation:
name: The name of the configuration variable you want to set.value: The value you want to set for the configuration variable.profile_name: The name of the profile in which you want to set the configuration variable.
Example Output: No output is displayed if the command succeeds.
Use Case 7: List the Configuration Entries
aws configure list
Motivation: Use this command to list all the configuration entries in the AWS CLI configuration.
Explanation: This command lists all the configuration entries present in the AWS CLI configuration file.
Example Output:
Name Value Type Location
