HowTo: Install AWS CLI - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) - API Tools

The Amazon EC2 API Tools are used to interface with most of the services of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, except with the creation instance-store backed AMIs, which the Amazon EC2 AMI Tools handles. This article discusses how to install the Amazon EC2 API Tools.

The Amazon EC2 API Tools require Java 1.5 or greater and require the following environment variables to be set:

Install Script

If you’re running Linux, this script will do everything this article covers: install_ec2-api-tools.sh from our aws_scripts collection. Be sure to run it as root or use sudo.

Git Repository

Checkout the repository. This only needs to be done once throughout this series of articles.

Console - user@hostname ~ $

1
git clone https://bitbucket.org/dowdandassociates/aws_scripts.git

Run install script

Console - user@hostname ~ $

1
sudo aws_scripts/install_aws_cli/install_ec2-api-tools.sh

Direct Download of Script

Console - user@hostname ~ $

1
curl -L https://bitbucket.org/dowdandassociates/aws_scripts/raw/master/install_aws_cli/install_ec2-api-tools.sh | sudo bash

Install Process

Create the directory in which to download the software if it does not already exist.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
mkdir -p /tmp/aws

Create the directory in which to install the software if it does not already exist.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
mkdir -p /opt/aws

Download the software.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
2
3
curl --silent \
--output /tmp/aws/ec2-api-tools.zip \
http://ec2-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-api-tools.zip

Delete any previous unzips of the software that may exist.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
rm -fR /tmp/aws/ec2-api-tools-*

Unzip the software.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
unzip -d /tmp/aws /tmp/aws/ec2-api-tools.zip

Delete any previously installed versions.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
rm -fR /opt/aws/ec2-api-tools

Move the unzipped directory into the install directory.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
mv /tmp/aws/ec2-api-tools-* /opt/aws/ec2-api-tools

Delete the .zip file.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
rm -f /tmp/aws/ec2-api-tools.zip

Set EC2_HOME, and put the tools into the path.

Console - root@hostname ~ #

1
2
3
4
cat <<'EOF'> /etc/profile.d/ec2-api-tools.sh
export EC2_HOME=/opt/aws/ec2-api-tools
export PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin
EOF

References

Parts in this series