How to use multiple AWS accounts from the command line?

Question

I've got two different apps that I am hosting (well the second one is about to go up) on Amazon EC2.

How can I work with both accounts at the command line (Mac OS X) but keep the EC2 keys & certificates separate? Do I need to change my environment variables before each ec2-* command?

Would using an alias and having it to the setting of the environment in-line work? Something like:

alias ec2-describe-instances1 = export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=/path; ec2-describe-instances

score 373 · Answer 1 · edited May 26 '17 at 01:24

You can work with two accounts by creating two profiles on the aws command line. It will prompt you for your AWS Access Key ID, AWS Secret Access Key and desired region, so have them ready.

Examples:

$ aws configure --profile account1
$ aws configure --profile account2

You can then switch between the accounts by passing the profile on the command.

$ aws dynamodb list-tables --profile account1
$ aws s3 ls --profile account2

Note:

If you name the profile to be default it will become default profile i.e. when no --profile param in the command.

More on default profile

If you spend more time using account1, you can make it the default by setting the AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE environment variable. When the default environment variable is set, you do not need to specify the profile on each command.

Linux, OS X Example:

$ export AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE=account1
$ aws dynamodb list-tables

Windows Example:

$ set AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE=account1
$ aws s3 ls

To configure region - here is list of region "codes" - http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html — arcseldon, Nov 05 '16 at 09:49

BG BRUNO · Answer 2 · 2017-04-14T22:56:13.793

92

Maybe it still help someone. You can set it manually.

1) Set in file

~/.aws/credentials

this

[default]
aws_access_key_id={{aws_access_key_id}}
aws_secret_access_key={{aws_secret_access_key}}

[{{profile_name}}]
aws_access_key_id={{aws_access_key_id}}
aws_secret_access_key={{aws_secret_access_key}}

{{aws_access_key_id}} you can get in section AWS Console > Identity and Access Management > Security Credentials > Access Keys

2) Set in file

~/.aws/config

this

[default]
region={{region}}
output={{output:"json||text"}}

[profile {{profile_name}}]
region={{region}}
output={{output:"json||text"}}

3) Test it with AWS Command Line and command and output will be JSON

aws ec2 describe-instances --profile {{profile_name}}

Ref

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-getting-started.html#cli-multiple-profiles

edited Apr 14 '17 at 22:56

answered Nov 28 '15 at 00:39

BG BRUNO

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@iBrianCox -- This information should preferably be merged into the most upvoted answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/34246053/1199564) because it allows a user to understand how to move settings from one profile to another if, for example, you started out with only the default profile and want to continue with dedicated, separate profiles. – mgd Mar 14 '18 at 08:24
@slm please read my comment above (was only able to do one mention per comment) – mgd Mar 14 '18 at 08:25
@mgd thank you for suggestion, but no - because at first that answer is not my - and second this is a different approach how to set it – BG BRUNO Mar 14 '18 at 20:25
@mgd Q can you more describe what you mean "one mention per comment" ? – BG BRUNO Mar 14 '18 at 20:26
What I meant was that in my first comment I intended to mention _both_ iBrianCox and slm (author and editor of the other answer respectively) but you are only allowed to do one mention per comment so I had to add another comment in order to mention both. You are correct that your answer is a different approach but it is very helpful to know where the information is stored, in particular if you intend to copy settings between profiles. – mgd Mar 14 '18 at 20:48

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited May 26 '17 at 01:27

21

You should be able to use the following command-options in lieu of the EC2_PRIVATE_KEY (and even EC2_CERT) environment variables:

-K <private key>
-C <certificate>

You can put these inside aliases, e.g.

alias ec2-describe-instances1 ec2-describe-instances -K /path/to/key.pem

edited May 26 '17 at 01:27

slm

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answered Feb 27 '09 at 03:05

vladr

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score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 15 '13 at 13:54

The new aws tools now support multiple profiles.

If you configure access with the tools, it automatically creates a default in ~/.aws/config.

You can then add additional profiles - more details at:

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-getting-started.html#cli-multiple-profiles

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 13 '20 at 19:48

I created a simple tool, aaws, to switch between AWS accounts.

It works by setting the AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE in your shell. Just make sure you have some entries in your ~/.aws/credentials file and it will easily switch between multiple accounts.

/tmp
$ aws s3 ls
Unable to locate credentials. You can configure credentials by running "aws configure".

/tmp
$ aaws luk3

[luk3]  /tmp
$ aws s3 ls
2013-11-05 21:40:04 luk3thomas.com

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 28 '21 at 17:35

IMHO, the easiest way is to edit .aws/credentials and .aws/config files manually.

It's easy and it works for Linux, Mac and Windows. Just read this for more detail (1 minute read).

.aws/credentials file:

[default]
aws_access_key_id=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
aws_secret_access_key=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

[user1]
aws_access_key_id=AKIAI44QH8DHBEXAMPLE
aws_secret_access_key=je7MtGbClwBF/2Zp9Utk/h3yCo8nvbEXAMPLEKEY

.aws/config file:

[default]
region=us-west-2
output=json

[profile user1]    <-- 'profile' in front of 'profile_name' (not for default)!!
region=us-east-1
output=text

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 21 '20 at 05:53

To use an IAM role, you have to make an API call to STS:AssumeRole, which will return a temporary access key ID, secret key, and security token that can then be used to sign future API calls. Formerly, to achieve secure cross-account, role-based access from the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), an explicit call to STS:AssumeRole was required, and your long-term credentials were used. The resulting temporary credentials were captured and stored in your profile, and that profile was used for subsequent AWS API calls. This process had to be repeated when the temporary credentials expired (after 1 hour, by default).

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-use-a-single-iam-user-to-easily-access-all-your-accounts-by-using-the-aws-cli/

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 17 '12 at 01:25

You can write shell script to set corresponding values of environment variables for each account based on user input. Doing so, you don't need to create any aliases and, furthermore, tools like ELB tools, Auto Scaling Command Line Tools will work under multiple accounts as well.

How to use multiple AWS accounts from the command line?

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