Calling AWS services from an environment in AWS Cloud9 - AWS Cloud9
Create and use an instance profile to manage temporary credentialsCreate and store permanent access credentials in an Environment

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Calling AWS services from an environment in AWS Cloud9

You can call AWS services from an AWS Cloud9 development environment. For example, you can do the following actions:

  • Upload and download data in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets.

  • Send broadcast notifications through Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topics.

  • Read and write data in Amazon DynamoDB (DynamoDB) databases.

You can call AWS services from your environment in several ways. For example, you can use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or the AWS CloudShell to run commands from a terminal session. You can also call AWS services from code you run within your environment. You can do this by using AWS SDKs for programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, and C++. For more information, see the AWS CLI and aws-shell Sample, the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide, and the AWS SDKs.

Each time the AWS CLI, the AWS CloudShell, or your code calls an AWS service, the AWS CLI, the AWS CloudShell, or your code must provide a set of AWS access credentials along with the call. These credentials determine whether the caller has the appropriate permissions to make the call. If the credentials don't cover the appropriate permissions, the call fails.

There are several ways to provide credentials to your environment. The following table describes some approaches.

Environment type Approach

EC2

Use AWS managed temporary credentials.

We recommend this approach for an EC2 environment. AWS managed temporary credentials manage AWS access credentials in an EC2 environment on your behalf, while also following AWS security best practices.

If you're using an EC2 environment, you can skip the rest of this topic. This is because AWS managed temporary credentials are already set up for you in the environment.

For more information, see AWS Managed Temporary Credentials.

EC2

Attach an IAM instance profile to the instance.

Only use this approach if for some reason you can't use AWS managed temporary credentials. Similar to AWS managed temporary credentials, an instance profile manages AWS access credentials on your behalf. However, you must create, manage, and attach the instance profile to the Amazon EC2 instance yourself.

For instructions, see Create and Use an Instance Profile to Manage Temporary Credentials.

EC2 or SSH

Store your permanent AWS access credentials within the environment.

This approach is less secure than using temporary AWS access credentials. However, it's the only supported approach for an SSH environment.

For instructions, see Create and Store Permanent Access Credentials in an Environment.

EC2 or SSH

Insert your permanent AWS access credentials directly into your code.

We discourage this approach because it doesn't follow AWS security best practices.

Because we discourage this approach, we do not cover it in this topic.

Create and use an instance profile to manage temporary credentials

Note

You can't use this procedure for an AWS Cloud9 SSH development environment. Instead, skip ahead to Create and Store Permanent Access Credentials in an Environment.

We recommend that you use AWS managed temporary credentials instead of an instance profile. Follow these instructions only if for some reason you can't use AWS managed temporary credentials. For more information, see AWS Managed Temporary Credentials.

This procedure uses IAM and Amazon EC2 to create and attach an IAM instance profile to the Amazon EC2 instance that connects to your environment. This instance profile manages temporary credentials on your behalf. This procedure assumes you have already created an environment in AWS Cloud9. To create an environment, see Create an Environment.

You can complete these tasks with the IAM and Amazon EC2 consoles or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

Create an instance profile with the IAM console

Note

If you already have an IAM role that contains an instance profile, skip ahead to Attach an Instance Profile to an Instance with the Amazon EC2 Console.

  1. Sign in to the IAM console, at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam.

    For this step, we recommend you sign in using administrator-level credentials in your AWS account. If you can't do this, check with your AWS account administrator.

  2. In the navigation bar, choose Roles.

    Note

    You cannot use the IAM console to create an instance profile by itself. You must create an IAM role, which contains an instance profile.

  3. Choose Create role.

  4. On the Select type of trusted entity page, with AWS service already chosen, for Choose the service that will use this role, choose EC2.

  5. For Select your use case, choose EC2.

  6. Choose Next: Permissions.

  7. On the Attach permissions policies page, in the list of policies, select the box next to AdministratorAccess, and then choose Next: Review.

    Note

    The AdministratorAccess policy allows unrestricted access to all AWS actions and resources across your AWS account. Use it only for experimentation purposes. For more information, see IAM Policies in the IAM User Guide.

  8. On the Review page, for Role Name, enter a name for the role (for example, my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile).

  9. Choose Create Role.

Skip ahead to Attach an Instance Profile to an Instance with the Amazon EC2 Console.

Create an instance profile with the AWS CLI

Note

If you already have an IAM role that contains an instance profile, skip ahead to Attach an Instance Profile to an Instance with the AWS CLI.

For this topic, we recommend you configure the AWS CLI using administrator-level credentials in your AWS account. If you can't do this, check with your AWS account administrator.

Note

If you're using AWS managed temporary credentials, you can't use a terminal session in the AWS Cloud9 IDE to run some or all of the commands in this section. To address AWS security best practices, AWS managed temporary credentials don’t allow some commands to be run. Instead, you can run those commands from a separate installation of the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

  1. Define a trust relationship in AWS for the instance profile's required IAM role. To do this, create and then save a file with the following contents (for example, my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role-trust.json).

    {
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}

  2. Using the terminal or command prompt, switch to the directory where you just saved this file.

  3. Create an IAM role for the instance profile. To do this, run the IAM create-role command. When you do, specify a name for the new IAM role (for example, my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role), and the name of the file that you just saved.

    aws iam create-role --role-name my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role --assume-role-policy-document file://my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role-trust.json

  4. Attach AWS access permissions to the instance profile IAM role. To do this, run the IAM attach-role-policy command. Specify the name of the existing IAM role and the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the AWS managed policy that's named AdministratorAccess.

    aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess
    Note

    The AdministratorAccess policy allows unrestricted access to all AWS actions and resources across your AWS account. Use it only for experimentation purposes. For more information, see IAM Policies in the IAM User Guide.

  5. Create the instance profile. To do this, run the IAM create-instance-profile command, specifying a name for the new instance profile (for example, my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile).

    aws iam create-instance-profile --instance-profile-name my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile

  6. Attach the IAM role to the instance profile. To do this, run the IAM add-role-to-instance-profile, specifying the names of the existing IAM role and instance profile.

    aws iam add-role-to-instance-profile --role-name my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile-role --instance-profile-name my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile

Skip ahead to Create an Instance Profile with the AWS CLI.

Attach an instance profile to an instance with the Amazon EC2 console

  1. Sign in to the Amazon EC2 console, at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2.

    For this step, we recommend that you sign in using administrator-level credentials in your AWS account. If you can't do this, check with your AWS account administrator.

  2. In the navigation bar, make sure that the Region selector displays the AWS Region that matches the one for your environment. For example, if you created your environment in the US East (Ohio) Region, choose US East (Ohio) in the Region selector here.

  3. Choose the Running Instances link or, in the navigation pane, expand Instances, and then choose Instances.

  4. In the list of instances, choose the instance with the Name that includes your environment name. For example, if your environment name is my-demo-environment, choose the instance with the Name that includes my-demo-environment.

  5. Choose Actions, Security, Modify IAM role.

    Note

    Although you are attaching a role to the instance, the role contains an instance profile.

  6. On the Modify IAM role page, for IAM role, choose the name of the role you identified or that you created in the previous procedure, and then choose Apply.

  7. Back in the environment, use the AWS CLI to run the aws configure command or the AWS CloudShell to run the configure command. Don't specify any values for AWS Access Key ID or AWS Secret Access Key (press Enter after each of these prompts). For Default Region name, specify the AWS Region closest to you or the Region where your AWS resources are located. For example, us-east-2 for the US East (Ohio) Region. For a list of Regions, see AWS Regions and Endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. Optionally, specify a value for Default output format (for example, json).

You can now start calling AWS services from your environment. To use the AWS CLI, the aws-shell, or both to call AWS services, see the AWS CLI and aws-shell Sample. To call AWS services from your code, see our other tutorials and samples.

Attach an instance profile to an instance with the AWS CLI

Note

If you're using AWS managed temporary credentials, you can't use a terminal session in the AWS Cloud9 IDE to run some or all of the commands in this section. To address AWS security best practices, AWS managed temporary credentials don’t allow some commands to be run. Instead, you can run those commands from a separate installation of the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

  1. Run the Amazon EC2 associate-iam-instance-profile command. Specify the name of the instance profile and the ID and AWS Region ID of the Amazon EC2 instance for the environment.

    aws ec2 associate-iam-instance-profile --iam-instance-profile Name=my-demo-cloud9-instance-profile --region us-east-2 --instance-id i-12a3b45678cdef9a0

    In the preceding command, replace us-east-2 with the AWS Region ID for the instance and i-12a3b45678cdef9a0 with the instance ID.

    To get the instance ID, you can, for example, run the Amazon EC2 describe-instances command, specifying the name and AWS Region ID of the environment.

    aws ec2 describe-instances --region us-east-2 --filters Name=tag:Name,Values=*my-environment* --query "Reservations[*].Instances[*].InstanceId" --output text

    In the preceding command, replace us-east-2 with the AWS Region ID for the instance and my-environment with the name of the environment.

  2. Back in the environment, use the AWS CLI to run the aws configure command or the aws-shell to run the configure command. Don't specify any values for AWS Access Key ID or AWS Secret Access Key. Press Enter after each of these prompts. For Default Region name, specify the AWS Region closest to you or the Region where your AWS resources are located. For example, us-east-2 for the US East (Ohio) Region. For a list of Regions, see AWS Regions and Endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. Optionally, specify a value for Default output format (for example, json).

You can now start calling AWS services from your environment. To use the AWS CLI, the aws-shell, or both to call AWS services, see the AWS CLI and aws-shell Sample. To call AWS services from your code, see our other tutorials and samples.

Create and store permanent access credentials in an Environment

Note

If you're using an AWS Cloud9 EC2 development environment, we recommend that you use AWS managed temporary credentials instead of AWS permanent access credentials. To work with AWS managed temporary credentials, see AWS managed temporary credentials.

In this section, you use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to generate a set of permanent credentials. The AWS CLI, the aws-shell, or your code can use this set of credentials when calling AWS services. This set includes an AWS access key ID and an AWS secret access key, which are unique to your user in your AWS account. If you already have an AWS access key ID and an AWS secret access key, note those credentials, and then skip ahead to Store Permanent Access Credentials in an Environment.

You can create a set of permanent credentials with the IAM console or the AWS CLI.

Grant programmatic access

Users need programmatic access if they want to interact with AWS outside of the AWS Management Console. The way to grant programmatic access depends on the type of user that's accessing AWS.

To grant users programmatic access, choose one of the following options.

Which user needs programmatic access? To By

Workforce identity

(Users managed in IAM Identity Center)

 Use temporary credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI, AWS SDKs, or AWS APIs.

Following the instructions for the interface that you want to use.
IAM Use temporary credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI, AWS SDKs, or AWS APIs. Following the instructions in Using temporary credentials with AWS resources in the IAM User Guide.
IAM

(Not recommended)

Use long-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the AWS CLI, AWS SDKs, or AWS APIs.

Following the instructions for the interface that you want to use.

Create permanent access credentials with the AWS CLI

Note

For this section, we recommend that you configure the AWS CLI using administrator-level credentials in your AWS account. If you can't do this, check with your AWS account administrator.

Note

If you're using AWS managed temporary credentials, you can't use a terminal session in the AWS Cloud9 IDE to run some or all of the commands in this section. To address AWS security best practices, AWS managed temporary credentials don’t allow some commands to be run. Instead, you can run those commands from a separate installation of the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

Run the IAM create-access-key command to create a new AWS access key and corresponding AWS secret access key for the user.

aws iam create-access-key --user-name MyUser

In the preceding command, replace MyUser with the name of the user.

In a secure location, save the AccessKeyId and SecretAccessKey values that are displayed. After you run the IAM create-access-key command, this is the only time you can use the AWS CLI to view the user's AWS secret access key. To generate a new AWS secret access key for the user later if needed, see Creating, Modifying, and Viewing Access Keys (API, CLI, PowerShell) in the IAM User Guide.

Store permanent access credentials in an Environment

In this procedure, you use the AWS Cloud9 IDE to store your permanent AWS access credentials in your environment. This procedure assumes you already created an environment in AWS Cloud9, opened the environment, and are displaying the AWS Cloud9 IDE in your web browser. For more information, see Creating an Environment and Opening an Environment.

Note

The following procedure shows how to store your permanent access credentials by using environment variables. If you have the AWS CLI or the aws-shell installed in your environment, you can use the aws configure command for the AWS CLI or the configure command for the aws-shell to store your permanent access credentials instead. For instructions, see Quick Configuration in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

  1. With your environment open, in the AWS Cloud9 IDE, start a new terminal session, if one is not already started. To start a new terminal session, on the menu bar, choose Window, New Terminal.

  2. Run each of the following commands, one command at a time, to set local environment variables representing your permanent access credentials. In these commands, after AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:, enter your AWS access key ID. After AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, enter your AWS secret access key. After AWS_DEFAULT_REGION_ID, enter the AWS Region identifier associated with the AWS Region closest to you (or your preferred AWS Region). For a list of available identifiers, see AWS Regions and Endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. For example, for the US East (Ohio), you use us-east-2.

    export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=

  3. Note that the preceding environment variables are valid only for the current terminal session. To make these environment variables available across terminal sessions, you must add them to your shell profile file as user environment variables, as follows.

    1. In the Environment window of the IDE, choose the gear icon, and then choose Show Home in Favorites. Repeat this step and choose Show Hidden Files as well.

    2. Open the ~/.bashrc file.

    3. Enter or paste the following code at the end of the file. In these commands, after AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:, enter your AWS access key ID. After AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, enter your AWS secret access key. After AWS_DEFAULT_REGION_ID, enter the AWS Region identifier associated with the AWS Region closest to you (or your preferred AWS Region). For a list of available identifiers, see AWS Regions and Endpoints in the Amazon Web Services General Reference. For example, for the US East (Ohio) Region, you use us-east-2.

      export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=

    4. Save the file.

    5. Source the ~/.bashrc file to load these new environment variables.

      . ~/.bashrc

You can now start calling AWS services from your environment. To use the AWS CLI or the aws-shell to call AWS services, see the AWS CLI and aws-shell Sample. To call AWS services from your code, see our other tutorials and samples.