Setting up your account to use the services
This topic describes preliminary steps, such as creating an account, to prepare you to use AWS WAF, AWS Firewall Manager, and AWS Shield Advanced. You aren't charged for these preliminary items. You are charged only for AWS services that you use.
Sign up for an AWS account
If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.
To sign up for an AWS account
Follow the online instructions.
Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the phone keypad.
When you sign up for an AWS account, an AWS account root user is created. The root user has access to all AWS services and resources in the account. As a security best practice, assign administrative access to a user, and use only the root user to perform tasks that require root user access.
AWS sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is
complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by
going to https://aws.amazon.com/
Create a user with administrative access
After you sign up for an AWS account, secure your AWS account root user, enable AWS IAM Identity Center, and create an administrative user so that you don't use the root user for everyday tasks.
Secure your AWS account root user
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Sign in to the AWS Management Console
as the account owner by choosing Root user and entering your AWS account email address. On the next page, enter your password. For help signing in by using root user, see Signing in as the root user in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.
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Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your root user.
For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for your AWS account root user (console) in the IAM User Guide.
Create a user with administrative access
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Enable IAM Identity Center.
For instructions, see Enabling AWS IAM Identity Center in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.
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In IAM Identity Center, grant administrative access to a user.
For a tutorial about using the IAM Identity Center directory as your identity source, see Configure user access with the default IAM Identity Center directory in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.
Sign in as the user with administrative access
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To sign in with your IAM Identity Center user, use the sign-in URL that was sent to your email address when you created the IAM Identity Center user.
For help signing in using an IAM Identity Center user, see Signing in to the AWS access portal in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.
Assign access to additional users
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In IAM Identity Center, create a permission set that follows the best practice of applying least-privilege permissions.
For instructions, see Create a permission set in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.
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Assign users to a group, and then assign single sign-on access to the group.
For instructions, see Add groups in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.
Download tools
The AWS Management Console includes a console for AWS WAF, AWS Shield Advanced, and AWS Firewall Manager, but if you want to access the services programmatically, see the following:
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The API guides document the operations that the services support and provide links to the related SDK and CLI documentation:
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To call an API without having to handle low-level details like assembling raw HTTP requests, you can use an AWS SDK. The AWS SDKs provide functions and data types that encapsulate the functionality of AWS services. To download an AWS SDK and access installation instructions, see the applicable page:
For a complete list of AWS SDKs, see Tools for Amazon Web Services
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You can use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) to control multiple AWS services from the command line. You can also automate your commands using scripts. For more information, see AWS Command Line Interface
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AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell supports these AWS services. For more information, see AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference
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