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Installing the AWS CLI

Ways to install the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)

Prerequisites

  • Python 2 version 2.6.5+ or Python 3 version 3.3+

  • Windows, Linux, macOS, or Unix

Note

Earlier versions of Python might not work with all AWS services. If you see InsecurePlatformWarning or deprecation notices when you install or use the AWS CLI, update to a newer version.

You can find the version number of the most recent CLI at: https://github.com/aws/aws-cli/blob/master/CHANGELOG.rst.

In this guide, the commands shown assume you have Python v3 installed and the pip commands shown use the pip3 version.

Installing the AWS CLI Using pip

The primary distribution method for the AWS CLI on Linux, Windows, and macOS is pip. This is a package manager for Python that provides an easy way to install, upgrade, and remove Python packages and their dependencies.

Installing the current AWS CLI Version

The AWS CLI is updated frequently with support for new services and commands. To determine whether you have the latest version, see the releases page on GitHub.

If you already have pip and a supported version of Python, you can install the AWS CLI by using the following command. If you have Python version 3+ installed, we recommend that you use the pip3 command. 

$ pip3 install awscli --upgrade --user

The --upgrade option tells pip3 to upgrade any requirements that are already installed. The --user option tells pip3 to install the program to a subdirectory of your user directory to avoid modifying libraries used by your operating system.

Upgrading to the latest version of the AWS CLI

We recommend that you regularly check to see if there is a new version of the AWS CLI and upgrade to it when you can.

Use the pip3 list -o command to check which packages are "outdated': 

$ aws --version
aws-cli/1.16.170 Python/3.7.3 Linux/4.14.123-111.109.amzn2.x86_64 botocore/1.12.160

$ pip3 list -o
Package    Version  Latest   Type 
---------- -------- -------- -----
awscli     1.16.170 1.16.198 wheel
botocore   1.12.160 1.12.188 wheel

Because the previous command shows that there is a newer version of the AWS CLI available, you can run pip3 install --upgrade to get the latest version: 

$ pip3 install --upgrade --user awscli
Collecting awscli
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/dc/70/b32e9534c32fe9331801449e1f7eacba6a1992c2e4af9c82ac9116661d3b/awscli-1.16.198-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.7MB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 1.7MB 1.6MB/s 
Collecting botocore==1.12.188 (from awscli)
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/10/cb/8dcfb3e035a419f228df7d3a0eea5d52b528bde7ca162f62f3096a930472/botocore-1.12.188-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: docutils>=0.10 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from awscli) (0.14)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: rsa<=3.5.0,>=3.1.2 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from awscli) (3.4.2)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: colorama<=0.3.9,>=0.2.5 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from awscli) (0.3.9)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: PyYAML<=5.1,>=3.10; python_version != "2.6" in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from awscli) (3.13)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: s3transfer<0.3.0,>=0.2.0 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from awscli) (0.2.0)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: jmespath<1.0.0,>=0.7.1 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from botocore==1.12.188->awscli) (0.9.4)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: urllib3<1.26,>=1.20; python_version >= "3.4" in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from botocore==1.12.188->awscli) (1.24.3)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: python-dateutil<3.0.0,>=2.1; python_version >= "2.7" in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from botocore==1.12.188->awscli) (2.8.0)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: pyasn1>=0.1.3 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from rsa<=3.5.0,>=3.1.2->awscli) (0.4.5)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: six>=1.5 in ./venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages (from python-dateutil<3.0.0,>=2.1; python_version >= "2.7"->botocore==1.12.188->awscli) (1.12.0)
Installing collected packages: botocore, awscli
  Found existing installation: botocore 1.12.160
    Uninstalling botocore-1.12.160:
      Successfully uninstalled botocore-1.12.160
  Found existing installation: awscli 1.16.170
    Uninstalling awscli-1.16.170:
      Successfully uninstalled awscli-1.16.170
Successfully installed awscli-1.16.198 botocore-1.12.188

Installing the AWS CLI in a Virtual Environment

If you encounter issues when you attempt to install the AWS CLI with pip3, you can install the AWS CLI in a virtual environment to isolate the tool and its dependencies. Or you can use a different version of Python than you normally do.

Installing the AWS CLI Using an Installer

For offline or automated installations on Linux, macOS, or Unix, try the bundled installer. The bundled installer includes the AWS CLI, its dependencies, and a shell script that performs the installation for you.

On Windows, you can also use the MSI installer. Both of these methods simplify the initial installation. However, the tradeoff is that it's more difficult to upgrade when a new version of the AWS CLI is released.

Steps to Take after Installation

Setting the Path to Include the AWS CLI

After you install the AWS CLI, you might need to add the path to the executable file to your PATH variable. For platform-specific instructions, see the following topics:

Verify that the AWS CLI installed correctly by running aws --version. 

$ aws --version
aws-cli/1.16.116 Python/3.6.8 Linux/4.14.77-81.59-amzn2.x86_64 botocore/1.12.106

Configure the AWS CLI with Your Credentials

Before you can run a CLI command, you must configure the AWS CLI with your credentials.

You store credential information locally by defining profiles in the AWS CLI configuration files, which are stored by default in your user's home directory. For more information, see Configuring the AWS CLI.

Note

If you are running in an Amazon EC2 instance, credentials can be automatically retrieved from the instance metadata. For more information, see Instance Metadata.

Upgrading to the Latest Version of the AWS CLI

The AWS CLI is updated regularly to add support for new services and commands. To update to the latest version of the AWS CLI, run the installation command again. For details about the latest version of the AWS CLI, see the AWS CLI release notes. 

$ pip3 install awscli --upgrade --user

Uninstalling the AWS CLI

If you need to uninstall the AWS CLI, use pip uninstall. 

$ pip3 uninstall awscli

If you don't have Python and pip, use the procedure for your environment.

Detailed Instructions for Each Environment