See AWS CLI docs.

Install with a package manager

macOS

See AWSCLI formula on Homebrew.

$ brew install awscli

Linux

From Installing, updating, and uninstalling the AWS CLI version 2 on Linux doc.

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ curl 'https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip' -o awscliv2.zip
$ unzip awscliv2.zip
$ sudo ./aws/install
You can now run: /usr/local/bin/aws --version

Test it:

$ aws --version
aws-cli/2.4.5 Python/3.8.8 Linux/5.4.117-58.216.amzn2.x86_64 exe/x86_64.debian.9 prompt/off

Clean up:

$ rm -rf awscliv2.zip aws/

Install in a virtual environment

Install and run the AWS CLI in a new Python 3 virtual environment.

Installation

$ mkdir ~/.local/virtualenvs
$ python3 -m venv ~/.local/virtualenvs/aws
$ source ~/.local/virtualenvs/aws/bin/activate
$ pip install awscli

Usage in virtual environment

Note that even though the package is awscli on PyPI and your pip list output, you must invoke using aws command.

$ source ~/.local/virtualenvs/aws/bin/activate
$ aws --version

Help

$ aws help

AWS()                                                                    AWS()



NAME
       aws -

DESCRIPTION
       The  AWS  Command  Line  Interface is a unified tool to manage your AWS
       services.

SYNOPSIS
          aws [options] <command> <subcommand> [parameters]

       Use aws command help for information on a  specific  command.  Use  aws
       help  topics  to view a list of available help topics. The synopsis for
       each command shows its parameters and their usage. Optional  parameters
       are shown in square brackets.
...

Usage

Some sample commands.

S3

Upload file:

$ aws s3 cp my_file.txt s3://my-bucket/
$ # Note forward slash, otherwise you'll create a file called `my_path`.
$ aws s3 cp my_file.txt s3://my-bucket/my_path/
$ aws s3 cp my_file.txt s3://my-bucket/my_path/my_new_name.txt

Upload directory:

$ aws s3 cp my_dir s3://my-bucket/ --recursive

List contents:

$ aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket/
$ # Use forward slash to show contents rather than dir itself.
$ aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket/my-dir/

Configure

From docs.

Run this from anywhere.

$ aws configure
AWS Access Key ID [None]: abc
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: def
Default region name [None]: us-west-2
Default output format [None]: json

That will create the following:

  • ~/.aws/credentials
  • ~/.aws/config

Test credentials

Check that your credentials are valid.

$ aws sts get-caller-identity