Cmdlet discovery and aliases
This section shows you how to list services that are supported by the AWS Tools for PowerShell, how to show the set of cmdlets provided by the AWS Tools for PowerShell in support of those services, and how to find alternative cmdlet names (also called aliases) to access those services.
Cmdlet Discovery
All AWS service operations (or APIs) are documented in the API Reference Guide for
each service. For example, see the IAM API Reference. There is, in most cases, a one-to-one
correspondence between an AWS service API and an AWS PowerShell cmdlet. To get the
cmdlet name that corresponds to an AWS service API name, run the AWS
Get-AWSCmdletName cmdlet with the -ApiOperation parameter
and the AWS service API name. For example, to get all possible cmdlet names that are
based on any available DescribeInstances AWS service API, run the following
command:
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation DescribeInstancesCmdletName ServiceOperation ServiceName CmdletNounPrefix ---------- ---------------- ----------- ---------------- Get-EC2Instance DescribeInstances Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-GMLInstance DescribeInstances Amazon GameLift Service GML
The -ApiOperation parameter is the default parameter, so you can omit the
parameter name. The following example is equivalent to the previous one:
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName DescribeInstances
If you know the names of both the API and the service, you can include the
-Service parameter along with either the cmdlet noun prefix or part of
the AWS service name. For example, the cmdlet noun prefix for Amazon EC2 is EC2.
To get the cmdlet name that corresponds to the DescribeInstances API in the
Amazon EC2 service, run one of the following commands. They are all result in the same
output:
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation DescribeInstances -Service EC2PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation DescribeInstances -Service ComputePS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation DescribeInstances -Service "Compute Cloud"CmdletName ServiceOperation ServiceName CmdletNounPrefix ---------- ---------------- ----------- ---------------- Get-EC2Instance DescribeInstances Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2
Parameter values in these commands are case-insensitive.
If you do not know the name of either the desired AWS service API or the AWS service,
you can use the -ApiOperation parameter, along with the pattern to match,
and the -MatchWithRegex parameter. For example, to get all available cmdlet
names that contain SecurityGroup, run the following command:
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation SecurityGroup -MatchWithRegexCmdletName ServiceOperation ServiceName CmdletNounPrefix ---------- ---------------- ----------- ---------------- Approve-ECCacheSecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeCacheSecurityGroupIngress Amazon ElastiCache EC Get-ECCacheSecurityGroup DescribeCacheSecurityGroups Amazon ElastiCache EC New-ECCacheSecurityGroup CreateCacheSecurityGroup Amazon ElastiCache EC Remove-ECCacheSecurityGroup DeleteCacheSecurityGroup Amazon ElastiCache EC Revoke-ECCacheSecurityGroupIngress RevokeCacheSecurityGroupIngress Amazon ElastiCache EC Add-EC2SecurityGroupToClientVpnTargetNetwrk ApplySecurityGroupsToClientVpnTargetNetwork Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2SecurityGroup DescribeSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2SecurityGroupReference DescribeSecurityGroupReferences Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2StaleSecurityGroup DescribeStaleSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Grant-EC2SecurityGroupEgress AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 New-EC2SecurityGroup CreateSecurityGroup Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Remove-EC2SecurityGroup DeleteSecurityGroup Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupEgress RevokeSecurityGroupEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupIngress RevokeSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleEgressDescription UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleIngressDescription UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Edit-EFSMountTargetSecurityGroup ModifyMountTargetSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic File System EFS Get-EFSMountTargetSecurityGroup DescribeMountTargetSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic File System EFS Join-ELBSecurityGroupToLoadBalancer ApplySecurityGroupsToLoadBalancer Elastic Load Balancing ELB Set-ELB2SecurityGroup SetSecurityGroups Elastic Load Balancing V2 ELB2 Enable-RDSDBSecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeDBSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Relational Database Service RDS Get-RDSDBSecurityGroup DescribeDBSecurityGroups Amazon Relational Database Service RDS New-RDSDBSecurityGroup CreateDBSecurityGroup Amazon Relational Database Service RDS Remove-RDSDBSecurityGroup DeleteDBSecurityGroup Amazon Relational Database Service RDS Revoke-RDSDBSecurityGroupIngress RevokeDBSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Relational Database Service RDS Approve-RSClusterSecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeClusterSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Redshift RS Get-RSClusterSecurityGroup DescribeClusterSecurityGroups Amazon Redshift RS New-RSClusterSecurityGroup CreateClusterSecurityGroup Amazon Redshift RS Remove-RSClusterSecurityGroup DeleteClusterSecurityGroup Amazon Redshift RS Revoke-RSClusterSecurityGroupIngress RevokeClusterSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Redshift RS
If you know the name of the AWS service but not the AWS service API, include both the
-MatchWithRegex parameter and the -Service parameter to
scope the search down to a single service. For example, to get all cmdlet names that
contain SecurityGroup in only the Amazon EC2 service, run the following
command
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -ApiOperation SecurityGroup -MatchWithRegex -Service EC2CmdletName ServiceOperation ServiceName CmdletNounPrefix ---------- ---------------- ----------- ---------------- Add-EC2SecurityGroupToClientVpnTargetNetwrk ApplySecurityGroupsToClientVpnTargetNetwork Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2SecurityGroup DescribeSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2SecurityGroupReference DescribeSecurityGroupReferences Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Get-EC2StaleSecurityGroup DescribeStaleSecurityGroups Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Grant-EC2SecurityGroupEgress AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 New-EC2SecurityGroup CreateSecurityGroup Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Remove-EC2SecurityGroup DeleteSecurityGroup Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupEgress RevokeSecurityGroupEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Revoke-EC2SecurityGroupIngress RevokeSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleEgressDescription UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2 Update-EC2SecurityGroupRuleIngressDescription UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2
If you know the name of the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) command, you can use the
-AwsCliCommand parameter and the desired AWS CLI command name to get the
name of the cmdlet that's based on the same API. For example, to get the cmdlet name
that corresponds to the authorize-security-group-ingress AWS CLI command call
in the Amazon EC2 service, run the following command:
PS >Get-AWSCmdletName -AwsCliCommand "aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress"CmdletName ServiceOperation ServiceName CmdletNounPrefix ---------- ---------------- ----------- ---------------- Grant-EC2SecurityGroupIngress AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2
The Get-AWSCmdletName cmdlet needs only enough of the AWS CLI command name
to identify the service and the AWS API.
To get a list of all of the cmdlets in the Tools for PowerShell Core, run the PowerShell
Get-Command cmdlet, as shown in the following example.
PS >Get-Command -Module AWSPowerShell.NetCore
You can run the same command with -Module AWSPowerShell to see the
cmdlets in the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell.
The Get-Command cmdlet generates the list of cmdlets in alphabetical
order. Note that by default the list is sorted by PowerShell verb, rather than
PowerShell noun.
To sort results by service instead, run the following command:
PS >Get-Command -Module AWSPowerShell.NetCore | Sort-Object Noun,Verb
To filter the cmdlets that are returned by the Get-Command cmdlet, pipe
the output to the PowerShell Select-String cmdlet. For example, to view the
set of cmdlets that work with AWS regions, run the following command:
PS >Get-Command -Module AWSPowerShell.NetCore | Select-String regionClear-DefaultAWSRegion Copy-HSM2BackupToRegion Get-AWSRegion Get-DefaultAWSRegion Get-EC2Region Get-LSRegionList Get-RDSSourceRegion Set-DefaultAWSRegion
You can also find cmdlets for a specific service by filtering for the service prefix
of cmdlet nouns. To see the list of available service prefixes, run
Get-AWSPowerShellVersion -ListServiceVersionInfo. The following example
returns cmdlets that support the Amazon CloudWatch Events service.
PS >Get-Command -Module AWSPowerShell -Noun CWE*CommandType Name Version Source ----------- ---- ------- ------ Cmdlet Add-CWEResourceTag 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Disable-CWEEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Disable-CWERule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Enable-CWEEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Enable-CWERule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEEventBus 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEEventBusList 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEEventSourceList 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEPartnerEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEPartnerEventSourceAccountList 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEPartnerEventSourceList 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWEResourceTag 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWERule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWERuleDetail 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWERuleNamesByTarget 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Get-CWETargetsByRule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet New-CWEEventBus 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet New-CWEPartnerEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWEEventBus 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWEPartnerEventSource 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWEPermission 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWEResourceTag 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWERule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Remove-CWETarget 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Test-CWEEventPattern 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Write-CWEEvent 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Write-CWEPartnerEvent 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Write-CWEPermission 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Write-CWERule 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore Cmdlet Write-CWETarget 3.3.563.1 AWSPowerShell.NetCore
Cmdlet Naming and Aliases
The cmdlets in the AWS Tools for PowerShell for each service are based on the methods provided by the
AWS SDK for the service. However, because of PowerShell's mandatory naming
conventions, the name of a cmdlet might be different from the name of the API call or
method on which it is based. For example, the Get-EC2Instance cmdlet is
based on the Amazon EC2DescribeInstances method.
In some cases, the cmdlet name may be similar to a method name, but it may actually
perform a different function. For example, the Amazon S3GetObject method
retrieves an Amazon S3 object. However, the Get-S3Object cmdlet returns
information about an Amazon S3 object rather than the object
itself.
PS >Get-S3Object -BucketName text-content -Key aws-tech-docsETag : "df000002a0fe0000f3c000004EXAMPLE" BucketName : aws-tech-docs Key : javascript/frameset.js LastModified : 6/13/2011 1:24:18 PM Owner : Amazon.S3.Model.Owner Size : 512 StorageClass : STANDARD
To get an S3 object with the AWS Tools for PowerShell, run the Read-S3Object
cmdlet:
PS >Read-S3Object -BucketName text-content -Key text-object.txt -file c:\tmp\text-object-download.textMode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a--- 11/5/2012 7:29 PM 20622 text-object-download.text
Note
The cmdlet help for an AWS cmdlet provides the name of the AWS SDK API on which the cmdlet is based.
For more information about standard PowerShell verbs and their meanings, see
Approved Verbs for PowerShell Commands
All AWS cmdlets that use the Remove verb – and the
Stop-EC2Instance cmdlet when you add the -Terminate
parameter – prompt for confirmation before proceeding. To bypass confirmation,
add the -Force parameter to your command.
Important
AWS cmdlets do not support the -WhatIf switch.
Aliases
Setup of the AWS Tools for PowerShell installs an aliases file that contains aliases for many of
the AWS cmdlets. You might find these aliases to be more intuitive than the cmdlet
names. For example, service names and AWS SDK method names replace PowerShell verbs
and nouns in some aliases. An example is the EC2-DescribeInstances
alias.
Other aliases use verbs that, though they do not follow standard PowerShell
conventions, can be more descriptive of the actual operation. For example, the alias
file maps the alias Get-S3Content to the cmdlet
Read-S3Object.
PS >Set-Alias -Name Get-S3Content -Value Read-S3Object
The aliases file is located in the AWS Tools for PowerShell installation directory. To load the aliases into your environment, dot-source the file. The following is a Windows-based example.
PS >. "C:\Program Files (x86)\AWS Tools\PowerShell\AWSPowershell\AWSAliases.ps1"
For a Linux or macOS shell, it might look like this:
. ~/.local/share/powershell/Modules/AWSPowerShell.NetCore/3.3.563.1/AWSAliases.ps1
To show all AWS Tools for PowerShell aliases, run the following command. This command uses the
? alias for the PowerShell Where-Object cmdlet and the
Source property to filter for only aliases that come from the
AWSPowerShell.NetCore module.
PS >Get-Alias | ? Source -like "AWSPowerShell.NetCore"CommandType Name Version Source ----------- ---- ------- ------ Alias Add-ASInstances 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-CTTag 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-DPTags 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-DSIpRoutes 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-ELBTags 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-EMRTag 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-ESTag 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Add-MLTag 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Clear-AWSCredentials 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Clear-AWSDefaults 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Dismount-ASInstances 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Edit-EC2Hosts 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Edit-RSClusterIamRoles 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Enable-ORGAllFeatures 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Find-CTEvents 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASACases 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASAccountLimits 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASACommunications 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASAServices 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASASeverityLevels 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASATrustedAdvisorCheckRefreshStatuses 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASATrustedAdvisorChecks 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASATrustedAdvisorCheckSummaries 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASLifecycleHooks 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-ASLifecycleHookTypes 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-AWSCredentials 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CDApplications 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CDDeployments 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentities 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFDistributions 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFGConfigRules 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFGConfigurationRecorders 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFGDeliveryChannels 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFInvalidations 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFNAccountLimits 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell Alias Get-CFNStackEvents 3.3.343.0 AWSPowerShell ...
To add your own aliases to this file, you might need to raise the value of
PowerShell's $MaximumAliasCount
preference variable
PS >$MaximumAliasCount = 32768
To verify that your change was successful, enter the variable name to show its current value.
PS >$MaximumAliasCount32768
