AWS — CLI

What is AWS CLI?

Command-line tool for managing AWS services programmatically.

Basic commands

# List S3 buckets
aws s3 ls

# Create S3 bucket
aws s3 mb s3://my-bucket

# Upload file
aws s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/

# Download file
aws s3 cp s3://my-bucket/file.txt .

EC2 commands

# List instances
aws ec2 describe-instances

# Start instance
aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

# Stop instance
aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

# Terminate instance
aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

IAM commands

# List users
aws iam list-users

# Create user
aws iam create-user --user-name newuser

# Attach policy
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name newuser --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/ReadOnlyAccess

Output formats

# JSON (default)
aws s3 ls --output json

# Table
aws ec2 describe-instances --output table

# YAML
aws s3 ls --output yaml

Filtering

# Filter instances
aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running"

# Query results
aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].[InstanceId,State.Name]"

Profiles

# Configure profile
aws configure --profile dev

# Use profile
aws s3 ls --profile dev

Helpful flags

• --dry-run: Preview changes
• --no-paginate: Disable pagination
• --max-items: Limit results

Mini Practice

1. List S3 buckets
2. Create an EC2 instance
3. Use filters and queries
4. Set up profiles

Up Next

Continue with IAM - Identity and Access Management.