AWS CloudShell compute environment: specifications and software

When you launch AWS CloudShell, a compute environment that's based on Amazon Linux 2023 is created to host the shell experience. The environment is configured with compute resources (vCPU and memory) and provides a wide range of pre-installed software that can be accessed from the command line interface. Make sure that any software you install in the compute environment is patched and up to date. You can also configure your default environment by installing software and modifying shell scripts.

Compute environment resources

Each AWS CloudShell compute environment is assigned the following CPU and memory resources:

• 1 vCPU (virtual central processing unit)

• 2-GiB RAM

And, the environment is provisioned with the following storage configuration:

• 1-GB persistent storage (storage persists after the session ends)

For more information, see Persistent storage.

CloudShell network requirements

WebSockets

CloudShell depends on the WebSocket protocol, which allows two-way interactive communication between the user's web browser and the CloudShell service in the AWS Cloud. If you're using a browser in a private network, secure access to the internet is probably facilitated by proxy servers and firewalls. WebSocket communication can usually traverse proxy servers without a problem. But in some cases, proxy servers prevent WebSockets from working correctly. If this issue occurs, your CloudShell interface reports the following error: Failed to open sessions : Timed out while opening the session.

If this error occurs repeatedly, see the documentation for your proxy server to ensure that it's configured to allow WebSockets. Alternatively, you can contact your network's system administrator.

Note

If you want to define granular permissions by allow-listing specific URLs, you can add part of the URL that the AWS Systems Manager session uses to open a WebSocket connection for sending input and receiving outputs. (Your AWS CloudShell commands are sent to that Systems Manager session.)

The format for this StreamUrl used by Systems Manager is wss://ssmmessages.region.amazonaws.com/v1/data-channel/session-id?stream=(input|output).

The region represents the Region identifier for an AWS Region supported by AWS Systems Manager, such as us-east-2 for the US East (Ohio) Region.

Because the session-id is created after a particular Systems Manager session is successfully started, you can only specify wss://ssmmessages.region.amazonaws.com when updating your URL allowlist. For more information, see the StartSession operation in the AWS Systems Manager API Reference.

Pre-installed software

Note

Because the AWS CloudShell development environment is regularly updated to provide access to the latest software, we don't provide specific version numbers in this documentation. Instead, we describe how you can check which version is installed. To check the installed version, enter the program name followed by the --version option (for example, git --version).

Shells

Pre-installed shells

Name	Description	Version information
Bash	The Bash shell is the default shell application for AWS CloudShell.	bash --version
PowerShell (pwsh)	Offering a command line interface and scripting language support, PowerShell is built on top of Microsoft’s .NET Command Language Runtime. PowerShell uses lightweight commands called cmdlets that accept and return .NET objects.	pwsh --version
Z Shell (zsh)	The Z Shell, also known as zsh, is an extended version of the Bourne Shell that offers enhanced customization support for themes and plugins.	zsh --version

AWS command line interfaces (CLI)

CLI

Name	Description	Version information
AWS CDK Toolkit CLI	The AWS CDK Toolkit, the CLI command, cdk, is the primary tool that interacts with your AWS CDK app. It executes your app, interrogates the application model you defined, and produces and deploys the AWS CloudFormation templates generated by the AWS CDK. For more information, see AWS CDK Toolkit.	cdk --version
AWS CLI	The AWS CLI is a command line interface that you can use to manage multiple AWS services from the command line and automate them using scripts. For more information, see Manage AWS services from CLI in CloudShell. For information about how you can ensure that you're using the most up-to-date version AWS CLI version 2, see Installing AWS CLI to your home directory.	aws --version
EB CLI	The AWS Elastic Beanstalk CLI provides a command line interface to simplify creating, updating, and monitoring environments from a local repository. For more information, see Using the Elastic Beanstalk command line interface (EB CLI) in the AWS Elastic Beanstalk Developer Guide.	eb --version
Amazon ECS CLI	Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) command line interface (CLI) provides high-level commands to simplify creating, updating, and monitoring clusters and tasks. For more information, see Using the Amazon ECS Command Line Interface in the Amazon Elastic Container Service Developer Guide.	ecs-cli --version
AWS SAM CLI	AWS SAM CLI is a command line tool that operates on an AWS Serverless Application Model template and application code. You can perform several tasks. These include invoking Lambda functions locally, creating a deployment package for your serverless application, and deploying your serverless application to the AWS Cloud. For more information, see the AWS SAM CLI command reference in the AWS Serverless Application Model Developer Guide.	sam --version
AWS Tools for PowerShell	The AWS Tools for PowerShell are PowerShell modules that are built on the functionality exposed by the AWS SDK for .NET. With AWS Tools for PowerShell, you can script operations on your AWS resources from the PowerShell command line. AWS CloudShell pre-installs the modularized version (AWS.Tools) of the AWS Tools for PowerShell. For more information, see Using the AWS Tools for PowerShell in the AWS Tools for PowerShell User Guide.	pwsh --Command ' Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name AWS.Tools.Common'

Runtimes and AWS SDKs: Node.js and Python 3

Runtimes and AWS SDKs

Name	Description	Version information
Node.js (with npm)	Node.js is a JavaScript runtime that's designed to make it easier to apply asynchronous programming techniques. For more information, see the documentation on the official Node.js site. npm is a package manager that provides access to an online registry of JavaScript modules. For more information, see the documentation on the official npm site.	Node.js: node --version npm: npm --version
SDK for JavaScript in Node.js	The software development kit (SDK) helps simplify coding by providing JavaScript objects for AWS services including Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, DynamoDB, and Amazon SWF. For more information, see the AWS SDK for JavaScript Developer Guide.	npm -g ls --depth 0 2>/dev/null | grep aws-sdk
Python	Python 3 is ready to use in the shell environment. Python 3 is now considered the default version of the programming language (support for Python 2 ended in January 2020). For more information, see the documentation on the official Python site. Also, pre-installed is pip, the package installer for Python. You can use this command line program to install Python packages from the online indexes such as the Python Package Index. For more information, see the documentation provided by the Python Packaging Authority.	Python 3: python3 --version pip: pip3 --version
SDK for Python (Boto3)	Boto is the software development kit (SDK) that Python developers use to create, configure, and manage AWS services, such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. The SDK provides an easy-to-use, object-oriented API, as well as low-level access to AWS services. For more information, see the Boto3 documentation.	pip3 list | grep boto3

Development tools and shell utilities

Development tools and shell utilities

Name	Description	Version information
bash-completion	bash-completion is a collection of shell functions that allow the autocompletion of partially typed commands or arguments by pressing the Tab key. You can find the packages that bash-completion supports in /usr/share/bash-completion/completions. To set up autocomplete for a package's commands, the program file must be sourced. For example, to set up autocomplete for Git commands, add the following line to .bashrc so the feature is available whenever your AWS CloudShell session starts: source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/git If you want to use custom completion scripts, add them to your persistent home directory ($HOME) and source them directly in .bashrc. For more information, see the project's README page on GitHub.	dnf info bash-completion
Git	Git is a distributed version control system that supports modern software development practices through branch workflows and content staging. For more information, see the documentation page on Git's official site.	git --version
iputils	The iputils package contains utilities for Linux networking. For more information about the utilities provided, see the iputils repository on GitHub.	Examples for an iputils tool: arping -V
jq	The jq utility parses JSON-formatted data to produce output that's modified by command line filters. For more information, see the jq manual hosted on GitHub.	jq --version
kubectl	kubectl is a command line tool for communicating with a Kubernetes cluster's control plane, using the Kubernetes API.	kubectl --version
make	The make utility uses makefiles to automate sets of tasks and organize code compilation. For more information, see the GNU Make documentation.	make --version
man	The man command provides manual pages for command line utilities and tools. For example, man ls returns the manual page for the ls command that lists the contents of directories. For more information, see the Wikipedia entry on man page.	man --version
nano	nano is a small and user-friendly editor for text-based interface. For more information, see the GNU nano documentation.	nano --version
procps	procps is a system administration utility that you can use to monitor and halt currently running processes. For more information, see the README file that lists programs that can be run with procps.	ps --version
SSH client	SSH clients use the secure shell protocol for encrypted communications with a remote computer. OpenSSH is the SSH client that's pre-installed. For more information, see the OpenSSH site maintained by the OpenBSD.	ssh -V
sudo	With the sudo utility, users can run a program with the security permissions of another user, typically the superuser. Sudo is useful when you need to install applications as a system administrator. For more information, see the Sudo Manual.	sudo --version
tar	tar is a command line utility that you can use to group multiple files in a single archive file (often called a tarball). For more information, see the GNU tar documentation.	tar --version
tmux	tmux is a terminal multiplexer that you can use to run different programs simultaneous in multiple windows. For more information, see a blog that provides a concise introduction to tmux.	tmux -V
unzip	For more information, see zip/unzip.
vim	vim is a customizable editor that you can interact with through a text-based interface. For more information, see the documentation resources provided on vim.org.	vim --version
wget	wget is a computer program used to retrieve content from web servers specified by endpoints in the command line. For more information, see the GNU Wget documentation.	wget --version
zip/unzip	The zip/unzip utilities use an archive file format that delivers lossless data compression without data loss. Call the zip command to group and compress files in a single archive. Use unzip to extract files from an archive into a specified directory.	unzip --version zip --version
Docker	Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping and running applications. Docker enables you to separate your applications from your infrastructure so you can deliver software quickly. It enables you to build Dockerfiles inside AWS CloudShell, and build Docker assets with CDK. For information about which AWS Regions are supported with Docker, see Supported AWS Regions for AWS CloudShell. You should be aware that Docker has limited space in the environment. If you have large individual images, or too many pre-existing Docker images, it can cause issues. For more information on Docker, see the Docker Documentation guide.	docker --version

Installing AWS CLI to your home directory

Like the rest of the software that's pre-installed in your CloudShell environment, the AWS CLI tool is updated automatically with scheduled upgrades and security patches. If you want to ensure that you have the most up-to-date version of AWS CLI, you can choose to manually install the tool in the shell's home directory.

Important

You need to manually install your copy of AWS CLI in the home directory so that it's available the next time you start a CloudShell session. This installation is needed because files that are added to directories outside of $HOME are deleted after you finish a shell session. Also, after you install this copy of AWS CLI, it isn't automatically updated. In other words, it's your responsibility to manage updates and security patches.

For more information about the AWS Shared Responsibility Model, see Data protection in AWS CloudShell.

To install AWS CLI

1. In the CloudShell command line, use the curl command to transfer a zipped copy of the AWS CLI installed to the shell:

   curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"

2. Unzip the zipped folder:

   unzip awscliv2.zip

3. To add the tool to a specified folder, run the AWS CLI installer:

   sudo ./aws/install --install-dir /home/cloudshell-user/usr/local/aws-cli --bin-dir /home/cloudshell-user/usr/local/bin

   If it's installed successfully, the command line displays the following message:

   You can now run: /home/cloudshell-user/usr/local/bin/aws --version

4. For your own convenience, we recommend that you also update the PATH environmental variable so that you don't need to specify the path to your installation of the tool when running aws commands:

   export PATH=/home/cloudshell-user/usr/local/bin:$PATH

   Note

   If you undo this change to PATH, aws commands that don't feature a specified path use the pre-installed version of AWS CLI by default.

Installing third-party software on your shell environment

Note

We recommend that you review the Shared Security Responsibility Model before you install any third-party applications to the AWS CloudShell's compute environment.

By default, all AWS CloudShell users have sudo permissions. Therefore, you can use the sudo command to install software that's not already available in the shell's compute environment. For example, you can use sudo with the DNF package-management utility to install cowsay, which generates ASCII art pictures of a cow with a message:

sudo dnf install cowsay

You can then launch the newly installed program by typing echo "Welcome to AWS CloudShell" | cowsay.

Important

Package manage utilities such as dnf install programs in directories (/usr/bin, for example), which are recycled when your shell session ends. This means additional software is installed and used on a per-session basis.

Modifying your shell with scripts

If you want to modify the default shell environment, you can edit a shell script that runs every time the shell environment starts up. The .bashrc script runs whenever the default bash shell starts up.

Warning

If you incorrectly modify your .bashrc file, you might not be able to access your shell environment afterward. It's good practice to make a copy of the file before editing. You can also mitigate risk by opening two shells when editing .bashrc. If you lose access in one shell, you're still logged in into the other shell and can roll back any changes.

If you do lose access after incorrectly modifying .bashrc or any other file, you can return AWS CloudShell to its default settings by deleting your home directory.

In the procedure, you'll modify the .bashrc script so that your shell environment switches automatically to running the Z shell.

1. Open the .bashrc using a text editor (Vim, for example):

   vim .bashrc

2. In the editor interface, press the I key to start editing, and then add the following:

   zsh

3. To exit and save the edited .bashrc file, press Esc to enter the Vim command mode and enter the following:

   :wq

4. Use the source command to reload the .bashrc file:

   source .bashrc

   When the command line interface becomes available again, the prompt symbol has changed to % to indicate that you're now using the Z shell.