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AWS Documentation » AWS SDK for C++ » Developer Guide » Getting Started Using the AWS SDK for C++ » Providing AWS Credentials

Providing AWS Credentials

To connect to any of the supported services with the AWS SDK for C++, you must provide AWS credentials. The AWS SDKs and CLIs use provider chains to look for AWS credentials in several different places, including system/user environment variables and local AWS configuration files.

You can set your credentials for use by the AWS SDK for C++ in various ways, but here are the recommended approaches:

  • Set credentials in the AWS credentials profile file on your local system, located at:

    • ~/.aws/credentials on Linux, macOS, or Unix

    • C:\Users\USERNAME\.aws\credentials on Windows

    This file should contain lines in the following format:

    [default]
aws_access_key_id = your_access_key_id
aws_secret_access_key = your_secret_access_key

    Substitute your own AWS credentials values for the values your_access_key_id and your_secret_access_key.

  • Set the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables.

    To set these variables on Linux, macOS, or Unix, use export : 

    export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_access_key_id
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret_access_key

    To set these variables on Windows, use set : 

    set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_access_key_id
set AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret_access_key

  • For an EC2 instance, specify an IAM role and then give your EC2 instance access to that role. See IAM Roles for Amazon EC2 in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances for a detailed discussion about how this works.

After you set your AWS credentials using one of these methods, the AWS SDK for C++ loads them automatically by using the default credential provider chain.

You can also supply AWS credentials using your own methods by:

  • Providing credentials to an AWS client class constructor.

  • Using Amazon Cognito, an AWS identity management solution. You can use the CognitoCachingCredentialsProviders classes in the identity-management project. For more information, see the Amazon Cognito Developer Guide.