Specify AWS Regions

There are two ways to specify the AWS Region to use when running AWS Tools for PowerShell commands:

• Use the -Region common parameter on individual commands.

• Use the Set-DefaultAWSRegion command to set a default Region for all commands.

Many AWS cmdlets fail if the Tools for Windows PowerShell can't figure out what Region to use. Exceptions include cmdlets for Amazon S3, Amazon SES, and AWS Identity and Access Management, which automatically default to a global endpoint.

To specify the region for a single AWS command

Add the -Region parameter to your command, such as the following.

PS > Get-EC2Image -Region us-west-2

To set a default region for all AWS CLI commands in the current session

From the PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

PS > Set-DefaultAWSRegion -Region us-west-2

Note

This setting persists only for the current session. To apply the setting to all of your PowerShell sessions, add this command to your PowerShell profile as you did for the Import-Module command.

To view the current default region for all AWS CLI commands

From the PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

PS > Get-DefaultAWSRegion

Region    Name             IsShellDefault
------    ----             --------------
us-west-2 US West (Oregon) True

To clear the current default Region for all AWS CLI commands

From the PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

PS > Clear-DefaultAWSRegion

To view a list of all available AWS Regions

From the PowerShell command prompt, type the following command. The third column in the sample output identifies which Region is the default for your current session.

PS > Get-AWSRegion

Region         Name                      IsShellDefault
------         ----                      --------------
ap-east-1      Asia Pacific (Hong Kong)  False
ap-northeast-1 Asia Pacific (Tokyo)      False
...
us-east-2      US East (Ohio)            False
us-west-1      US West (N. California)   False
us-west-2      US West (Oregon)          True
...

Note

Some Regions might be supported but not included in the output of the Get-AWSRegion cmdlet. For example, this is sometimes true of Regions that are not yet global. If you're not able to specify a Region by adding the -Region parameter to a command, try specifying the Region in a custom endpoint instead, as shown in the following section.

Specifying a Custom or Nonstandard Endpoint

Specify a custom endpoint as a URL by adding the -EndpointUrl common parameter to your Tools for Windows PowerShell command, in the following sample format.

PS > Some-AWS-PowerShellCmdlet -EndpointUrl "custom endpoint URL" -Other -Parameters

The following is an example using the Get-EC2Instance cmdlet. The custom endpoint is in the us-west-2, or US West (Oregon) Region in this example, but you can use any other supported AWS Region, including regions that are not enumerated by Get-AWSRegion.

PS > Get-EC2Instance -EndpointUrl "https://service-custom-url.us-west-2.amazonaws.com" -InstanceID "i-0555a30a2000000e1"

Additional information

For additional information about AWS Regions, see AWS Region in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide.