AWS Root Account and IAM User

  • Create a new AWS root account
  • Configure the root account
    • Setup MFA
    • Setup billing alert

IAM User

  • Create IAM user
    • Create an IAM user with “AdministratorAccess” policy
    • Give it some name, e.g. Developers
    • Allow both console and programmatic access for the user
    • Save credentials CSV file to local machine

Install AWS CLI

  • Installation basics
    • Installing on macOS for a single user
    • Installing version 2
    • Used this guide as reference AWS CLI Users Guide
  • Installation Steps

    • Following the instructions under Installing the AWS CLI –> AWS CLI version 2 –> macOS

    • Copy and save the provided XML template to a file. This XML ile is used to specify the location where we want aws-cli to be installed. I wanted to install the AWS CLI executables in bin folder under my home directory. The XML after modifications looks as follows (I only modified the location of the directory):

        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
  <array>
      <dict>
      <key>choiceAttribute</key>
      <string>customLocation</string>
      <key>attributeSetting</key>
      <string>/Users/your_home_directory/bin</string>
      <key>choiceIdentifier</key>
      <string>default</string>
      </dict>
  </array>
  </plist>

    • Download install package

        curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"

    • Run installer command, specify the XML file that you created in the previous steps:

        installer -pkg AWSCLIV2.pkg \
      -target CurrentUserHomeDirectory \
      -applyChoiceChangesXML choices.xml

    • Create symlinks within a folder that may contain all your executables or symlinks to executables. I created a folder to hold all my executable links. Since I created a new folder to hold my executable links, I adding this folder to PATH variable in my .bash_profile:

        mkdir ~/executable_links

      Add to ~/.bash_profile:

        PATH=$HOME/executable_links:$PATH

      Create symlinks:

        cd ~/executable_links
  ln -s $HOME/bin/aws-cli/aws .
  ln -s $HOME/bin/aws-cli/aws-completer .

    • Configure AWS CLI to use the IAM user credentials that we downloaded in an earlier step:

      • Run command aws configure:
        • Enter Access Key ID
        • Enter Secret Access Key
        • Enter region

Install jq

If not already present, install jq utility on your local machine from the jq website.