Using profiles for multiple accounts in AWS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using profiles for multiple accounts

📖 Scenario: You work as a cloud engineer managing resources across two AWS accounts: a development account and a production account. To switch between these accounts easily, you want to set up AWS CLI profiles.

🎯 Goal: Set up AWS CLI configuration with two profiles named dev and prod for the development and production accounts respectively.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a basic AWS CLI config file with a default profile

Add a profile named dev with specific region and output format

Add a profile named prod with different region and output format

Verify the profiles are correctly configured in the AWS CLI config file

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Managing multiple AWS accounts is common in companies to separate development, testing, and production environments. Profiles help switch contexts easily.

💼 Career

Cloud engineers and DevOps professionals often configure and use multiple AWS profiles to manage resources securely and efficiently across accounts.

1

Create the default AWS CLI config section

Create a file named ~/.aws/config and add the default profile section with region = us-east-1 and output = json.

AWS

[default]
region = us-east-1
output = json
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The default profile is used when no other profile is specified. It must have region and output keys.

2

Add the development profile

Add a profile section named [profile dev] with region = us-west-2 and output = text to the ~/.aws/config file.

AWS

[default]
region = us-east-1
output = json

# Add the dev profile below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Profile sections start with [profile profilename]. Use the exact profile name dev.

3

Add the production profile

Add a profile section named [profile prod] with region = eu-central-1 and output = table to the ~/.aws/config file.

AWS

[default]
region = us-east-1
output = json

[profile dev]
region = us-west-2
output = text

# Add the prod profile below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the exact profile name prod and set the region and output as specified.

4

Verify the AWS CLI profiles

Ensure the ~/.aws/config file contains the [default], [profile dev], and [profile prod] sections with their respective region and output settings.

AWS

[default]
region = us-east-1
output = json

[profile dev]
region = us-west-2
output = text

[profile prod]
region = eu-central-1
output = table

# Verify all profiles are present
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Check that all three profiles exist with correct settings in the config file.