Aws Account

· 2 min read

1. AWS account

  1. Sign up for an AWS account at AWS Sign Up . You will be eligible for some free services for the first time sign up, ref: AWS Free Tier

  2. get your access key by clicking on your name -> My Security Credentials on the top pane and then clicking Create New Access Key. download to a safe location, you wont be able to see it a second time Access Key

  3. Install AWS CLI from AWS cli

  4. Configure your cli from the terminal by typing in aws configure, and use the access credentials from step 2 and for region use the region closest to you, get the region code from the UI(it is very important to be consistent with regions) Region Code

2. pem/ppk

We create a pem (for linux) or ppk (for windows) file to let us log into any virtual machines(EC2) we might create. To download the file sign on to your AWS account and go to

  1. Go to AWS services -> EC2

  2. In the left pane you will see Key Pairs, click on it Key Pair

  3. Make sure you are in the region that corresponds to your geographical location. e.g. in the above image you can see it is N.Virginia. This is important because certain services are limited to their geographical location.

  4. Click on the Create Key Pair button on the top right and choose pem or ppk depending on if you are connecting in from a linux based(also mac) or windows system, give it a name and create it.

  5. Download the file and keep it in a secure location, this will be your key to log into your virtual machines Key Pair

  6. After download, in your local machine run the chmod command on the downloaded pem file

chmod 400 <your-key-pair>.pem

3. S3

To create a S3 bucket

  1. Go to AWS Services -> S3
  2. Click on Create bucket on the top right
  3. Type in your bucket name, the name must be unique and select your region(it is very important to be consistent with regions)
  4. Press Create Bucket, that’s it.