CLI: Command Line Interface

Add user credentials locally using this command:

• $ aws configure

If you are using multiple AWS accounts, you can add custom profiles with seperate credentials using this command:

• $ aws configure --profile {my-other-aws-account}
• if you you’d like to execute commands on a specific profile:
  • example: aws s3 ls --profile {my-other-aws-account}
• if you don’t specify the aws profile, the commands will be executed to your default profile

AWS CLI on EC2

• IAM roles can be attached to EC2 instances
• IAM roles can come with a policy authorizing exactly what the EC2 instance should be able to do. This is the best practice.
• EC2 Instances can then use these profiles automatically without any additional configurations

CLI STS Decode Errors

• When you run API calls and they fail, you can get a long, encoded error message code
• This error can be decoded using STS
• run the command: aws sts decode-authorization-message --encoded-message {encoded_message_code}
• your IAM user must have the correct permissions to use this command by adding the STS service to your policy