How to install AWS command line interface (awscli) on Linux?

We can simply install awscli using pip. Pip is a package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python.

Check pip is already installed on your machine.

pip --version
pip 1.5.4 from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)

If it is not installed, please install pip.

pip installation steps

curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

The script downloads and installs the latest version of pip.

python get-pip.py --user

Next step is important. We need to add the local bin location to the current PATH variable.

To list current PATH details:

echo $PATH

Add the executable path to your PATH variable: ~/.local/bin

export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

This command adds a path, ~/.local/bin in this example, to the current PATH variable.

source ~/.profile

You can find the shell’s profile script in your user folder.

pip install awscli --upgrade --user

You can use the above command to upgrade awscli tool.

Verify that the AWS CLI installed correctly:

$ aws --version
aws-cli/1.14.37 Python/2.7.6 Linux/4.4.0-111-generic botocore/1.8.41

Add the executable path to your PATH variable: ~/.local/bin

export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

This command adds a path, ~/.local/bin in this example, to the current PATH variable.

Load the profile into your current session.

source ~/.profile

To see more details about aws command line interface tool:

  aws help
  aws command help
  aws command subcommand help