Install AWS CLI on your Mac Terminal

Purpose of the Repository

• Check whether AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) is installed on your Apple Mac / MacBook / MacBook Pro / iMac Terminal
• Instructions on how to install AWS CLI
• Instructions on how to connect to AWS CLI from your Mac Terminal
• Instructions on how to spin up your first AWS resource from AWS CLI (an EC2 instance)

Steps to run the Repository

STEP 1. Launch Terminal in your Mac

STEP 2. Ensure you are super user who can run sudo commands. Execute the following command at the terminal's prompt:

sudo -v

If you are not a super user, you will get the following error - Sorry, user may not run sudo on .

If you are a super user, you will not get any response.

Please note if you are not a super user, you will NOT be able to complete the remaining steps below.

STEP 3. To find the version of AWS CLI installed, execute at the terminal's prompt:

aws --version

If AWS CLI is not installed you will get the following error - No such file or directory

If AWS CLI is installed, you will get the following message - aws-cli/X.X.X Python/X.X.X Darwin/X.X.X botocore/X.X.XdevX

STEP 4. If AWS CLI is installed, please skip to STEP 7.

STEP 5. If AWS CLI is not installed, the first step is to install Homebrew.

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS. Please refer https://brew.sh/ for more information. To install Homebrew please paste the following command at the prompt.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Warning Important Step After Installation of Brew. You will be required to run commands similar to the ones below MANUALLY. Brew installation will indicate the accurate commands at the end of this installation. BE SURE TO RUN THESE COMMANDS, or else you will get the error 'zsh: command not found: brew'

echo '# Set PATH, MANPATH, etc., for Homebrew.' >> /Users/xyz/.zprofile
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/xyz/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

STEP 6. Install the AWS CLI package.

Paste following command at the prompt

brew install awscli

If you get a message saying Error: The following directories are not writable by your user:, you must prefix sudo with each of your commands at the prompt as shown below.

sudo brew install awscli

If your installation completes successfully, congratulations, you have installed AWS CLI on your mac terminal AWS CLI.

You can check the version of AWS CLI installed using this command

aws --version

You will get a response similar to this

STEP 7. Setup Programmatic Access to AWS.

a. Login to your AWS Management console from a web browser. (If you do not have an aws account, visit https://portal.aws.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/registration/index.html to setup a new account. If you already have an aws account, please visit http://console.aws.amazon.com)

b. Once you reach the AWS Management console, in the Find Services search field, enter IAM. You will now see Manage access to AWS resources as the option. Click on to reach the IAM Management Console. Then click on Users and click on your User name. Then click on the security credentials tab. You will now see a button name Create access key. Click on this button.

c. Once you click the button, you will see your AWS access key. Your AWS key has two parts - a 20 character (capitalized alpha numeric) Access Key ID and a 40 character (alpha numeric) Secret Access Key. Please save both in a safe location. This is the only time AWS will display your Secret Access Key. If you lose your secret access key, there is no way to recover it - you will need to create a new access key using the above steps.

STEP 8. Configure AWS CLI credentials at your mac terminal.

Go back to the terminal and paste this command at the prompt.

aws configure

a. Paste your AWS Access Key ID, at the Enter your AWS Access Key ID : prompt.
b. Paste your AWS Secret Access Key, at the Enter your AWS Secret Access Key : prompt.
c. Type in which region you want to default to, at the Default region name : prompt. For the purpose of this instructions, please enter us-east-1 at the prompt.
d. Type in what output format you want to default to, at the Default output format : prompt. For the purpose of this instructions, please enter json at the prompt, and click enter.

STEP 9. Check if the connectivity is established from your mac terminal to AWS

At the terminal, paste this command at the prompt:

aws sts get-caller-identity

If the connectivity is established, you will get a JSON response similar to whats shown below.

{
    "UserId": "ABCDEFGHIJ0123456789",
    "Account": "123456789012",
    "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/user1"
}

If you get this JSON response, congratulations, your mac terminal AWS CLI is connected to your AWS account.

STEP 10. Spin up the an EC2 instance in your AWS account, using mac terminal AWS CLI commands.

Now that you have the CLI installed, you can type in various commands to spin up and spin down resources in your AWS account. In the below example, we are going to spin up an EC2 instance in region us-east-1. Paste the following commands at the mac terminal prompt.

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0c09d65d2051ada93 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro