Using multiple AWS CLI named profiles

Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

If you’re like me, used multiple aws accounts on our development environment but like to switch profile like browser tab, you could do it easily.

No more --profile USERNAME in every aws commands.

Getting started (skip if you have one already)

Right from the start you need to config globally like git --config. For the best practice & security, please don’t use root account access key, just create an admin user with full access could do the job easily.

aws configure

After that you can identify your default account by

aws configure list  // list in table
aws configure list-profiles  // list profile name

All credential & config are store as text file under ~/.aws in Unix and %USERPROFILE%\.aws\credentials in Windows.

 Name                    Value             Type    Location
      ----                    -----             ----    --------

[default]
aws_access_key_id = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
aws_secret_access_key = YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Multiple profiles

If you’re fancy creating IAM user from CLI

aws iam create-user --user-name YOURNAME
aws iam create-access-key --user-name YOURNAME  // save access & secret keys
aws configure --profile YOURNAME // follow along 

Now You can list all your profiles again, You’ll see default and YOURNAME (your given user name).

aws configure list-profiles  // list profile names

To switch profile -

export AWS_PROFILE=YOURNAME // to run as newly created user

set AWS_PROFILE=YOURNAME  // in Windows 

You can check your current profile by

aws sts get-caller-identity

You can clear that env by

unset AWS_PROFILE

You can checkout as default user again

export AWS_PROFILE=default // to run as default admin user

For more information please refer to official name profiles.