Monday, November 25, 2013

Setting Up AWS Command Line Interface on Windows 2008 64 bit EC2 instance

The AWS documentation combines a lot of information for different operating systems to install AWS command line interface.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-getting-set-up.html#cli-test-the-setup

Abbreviated version for Windows 2008 64 bit EC2 instance:

1. Download and install the Windows 64 bit version of the command line tools -

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-getting-set-up.html#install-msi-on-windows

2. Open a new command window (go to start, run, type cmd on Windows 2008)

3. Type "aws help" to verify CLI is working.

4. Type "aws configure" and enter info when prompted -- will look something like this but use your key:

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

Then you'll need to add an environment variable to tell the tool where to find your configuration file:

Start, Control Panel
Search box in top right - type 'Env' and search
Click Edit the System Environment Variables
Click Environment Variables button
Click New button under bottom box
 Enter name or variable: AWS_CONFIG_FILE
Enter the value which is the path to your conifg file, something like this: C:\Users\UserNameHere\.aws\config
Enter, ok, yada yada

Configuration Details:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-getting-started.html

If you forgot your access key: Go to Services - IAM - Click on Users -- choose an existing user and create a new key or create a new user and a new key depending on what you're doing.

Your region name is part of the availability zone name listed for your EC2 instance in the details - Regions:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-regions-availability-zones.html#concepts-regions-availability-zones

Important

The configuration file may contain confidential information, such as your security credentials. We recommend setting the file permissions of the configuration file so that it is readable only by the current user.