Prerequisites to use the AWS CLI version 2
To access AWS services with the AWS CLI, you need an AWS account with IAM or IAM Identity Center credentials. When running AWS CLI commands, the AWS CLI needs to have access to those AWS credentials. To increase the security of your AWS account, we recommend that you only use short-lived credentials when using root or IAM users. You should create a user with least privilege to provide access credentials to the tasks you'll be running in AWS. For information about best practices, see Security best practices in the IAM User Guide.
Create an IAM or IAM Identity Center administrative account
Before you can configure the AWS CLI, you need to create an IAM or IAM Identity Center account.
| Choose a way to manage your credentials | To | How to create an account | How to configure programmatic access to the account |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Management Console credentials | Use short-term credentials corresponding to the root user created during initial account set up, an IAM user, or a federated identity from your identity provider. | Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup |
No additional steps are necessary. To sign in to the AWS CLI with your AWS account, see Login for AWS local development using console credentials |
| IAM Identity Center | Use short-term credentials to access AWS services. | Following the instructions in Getting started in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide. | Configure programmatic access by Configuring the to use in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide. |
| AWS Identity and Access Management (Not recommended) |
Use long-term credentials to access AWS services. | Following the instructions in Create an for emergency access in the IAM User Guide. | Configure programmatic access by Manage access keys for users in the IAM User Guide. |
Next steps
After creating an AWS account and IAM credentials, to use the AWS CLI you can do one of the following:
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Install the latest release of the AWS CLI version 2 on your computer.
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Install a past release of the AWS CLI version 2 on your computer.
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Access the AWS CLI version 2 from your computer using a Docker image.
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Access the AWS CLI version 2 in the AWS console from your browser using AWS CloudShell. For more information see the AWS CloudShell User Guide.
