aws Command Line Interface (CLI)

An aws Command Line Interface (CLI) is a cloud service command line interface for AWS services and AWS resources.

• Context:
  • It can be Python-based, and be installed with pip install awscli.
  • It can issue AWS CLI Commands, such as:
    • aws ec2 describe-instances to display information about EC2 instances.
    • aws s3 ls to list the contents of an S3 bucket.
    • aws s3 cp localfile.txt s3://mybucket to copy a file to an S3 bucket.
    • aws dynamodb scan --table-name mytable to scan a DynamoDB table.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • ...
  • AWS CLI v1, 2015.
  • AWS CLI v2, 2020.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • s3cmd.
  • Google CLI, Azure CLI.
• See: AWS Access Key, AWS IAM, AWS SDK, AWS SSO.

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References

2020

• "AWS CLI v2 is now generally available." Amazon Blog, 2020-02-10
  • QUOTE: We’re excited to announce the v2.0.0 GA release of the AWS CLI version 2 (v2).
  • AWS CLI v2 builds on AWS CLI v1 and includes a number of features and enhancements based on community feedback.
  • The AWS CLI v2 offers several new features including improved installers, new configuration options such as AWS Single Sign-On (SSO), and various interactive features.

2015

• http://aws.amazon.com/cli/
  • The AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is a unified tool to manage your AWS services. With just one tool to download and configure, you can control multiple AWS services from the command line and automate them through scripts.

    The AWS CLI introduces a new set of simple file commands for efficient file transfers to and from Amazon S3.

2015

• http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/signing_aws_api_requests.html
  • QUOTE: Requests to AWS must be signed — that is, they must include information that AWS can use to authenticate the requestor. Requests are signed using the access key ID and secret access key of an account or of an IAM user. ...

    ... If you are using one of the AWS SDKs, the AWS Command Line interface (CLI), or a service-specific CLI, you do not need to worry about signing requests. All you need to do is configure the tools with one or more access keys. These tools construct and send requests to AWS for you, and as part of that process, they sign the requests using an access key that you provide.

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