The AWS command line client allows you to manage your AWS services from your local computer. If you only have one AWS account, then you might be fine with creating a single default configuration. If you happen to run a studio or agency where you manage multiple AWS accounts, you will likely want to learn how to create client profiles.

Single Default Profile

Here's how to set up a default AWS credential.

aws configure

The command above will create a credentials file within ~/.aws/credentials that looks like this.

  • You will need your Access Key ID and your Secret access keys.
  • I choose us-east-1 for Default region name but you can choose from this list
  • I choose json for Default output format.

aws-configure

Multiple User Profiles

Client profiles allow you to store and organize multiple Access key ID and Secret access keys into profiles.

Create a user profile on your local machine

Now that you've installed the AWS command-line tools and have created a user with an Access Key ID and Secret Access Key, the next step is to create a local profile.

This command will create a local profile that will be stored within ~/.aws/credentials.

aws configure --profile myawsprofile

You will be asked to answer a sequence of questions. Here's what I use:

AWS Access Key ID [None]: ##YourAccessKey##
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: ##YourSecretAccessKey##
Default region name [None]: us-east-1 #Or region closest to you.
Default output format [None]: json