We announced the upcoming end-of-support for AWS SDK for JavaScript v2. We recommend that you migrate to AWS SDK for JavaScript v3. For dates, additional details, and information on how to migrate, please refer to the linked announcement.

Using the Global Configuration Object

There are two ways to configure the SDK:

Setting global configuration with AWS.Config is often easier to get started, but service-level configuration can provide more control over individual services. The global configuration specified by AWS.Config provides default settings for service objects that you create subsequently, simplifying their configuration. However, you can update the configuration of individual service objects when your needs vary from the global configuration.

Setting Global Configuration

After you load the aws-sdk package in your code you can use the AWS global variable to access the SDK's classes and interact with individual services. The SDK includes a global configuration object, AWS.Config, that you can use to specify the SDK configuration settings required by your application.

Configure the SDK by setting AWS.Config properties according to your application needs. The following table summarizes AWS.Config properties commonly used to set the configuration of the SDK.

For more information about the configuration object, see Class: AWS.Config in the API Reference.

Global Configuration Examples

You must set the Region and the credentials in AWS.Config. You can set these properties as part of the AWS.Config constructor, as shown in the following browser script example:

var myCredentials = new AWS.CognitoIdentityCredentials({IdentityPoolId:'IDENTITY_POOL_ID'});
var myConfig = new AWS.Config({
  credentials: myCredentials, region: 'us-west-2'
});

You can also set these properties after creating AWS.Config using the update method, as shown in the following example that updates the Region:

myConfig = new AWS.Config();
myConfig.update({region: 'us-east-1'});

You can get your default credentials by calling the static getCredentials method of AWS.config:

var AWS = require("aws-sdk");

AWS.config.getCredentials(function(err) {
  if (err) console.log(err.stack);
  // credentials not loaded
  else {
    console.log("Access key:", AWS.config.credentials.accessKeyId);
  }
});

Similarly, if you have set your region correctly in your config file, you get that value by setting the AWS_SDK_LOAD_CONFIG environment variable is set to any value and calling the static region property of AWS.config:

var AWS = require("aws-sdk");

console.log("Region: ", AWS.config.region);

Setting Configuration Per Service

Each service that you use in the SDK for JavaScript is accessed through a service object that is part of the API for that service. For example, to access the Amazon S3 service you create the Amazon S3 service object. You can specify configuration settings that are specific to a service as part of the constructor for that service object. When you set configuration values on a service object, the constructor takes all of the configuration values used by AWS.Config, including credentials.

For example, if you need to access Amazon EC2 objects in multiple Regions, create an Amazon EC2 service object for each Region and then set the Region configuration of each service object accordingly.

var ec2_regionA = new AWS.EC2({region: 'ap-southeast-2', maxRetries: 15, apiVersion: '2014-10-01'});
var ec2_regionB = new AWS.EC2({region: 'us-east-1', maxRetries: 15, apiVersion: '2014-10-01'});

You can also set configuration values specific to a service when configuring the SDK with AWS.Config. The global configuration object supports many service-specific configuration options. For more information about service-specific configuration, see Class: AWS.Config in the AWS SDK for JavaScript API Reference.

Immutable Configuration Data

Global configuration changes apply to requests for all newly created service objects. Newly created service objects are configured with the current global configuration data first and then any local configuration options. Updates you make to the global AWS.config object don't apply to previously created service objects.

Existing service objects must be manually updated with new configuration data or you must create and use a new service object that has the new configuration data. The following example creates a new Amazon S3 service object with new configuration data:

s3 = new AWS.S3(s3.config);