You are going to need to make sure you meet a few requirements to install the CLI tools but you should already have most in place.
Python 2 or Python 3.3+
Pip
First verify your python version.
python --version
You should get a response similar to this.
➜ ~ python --version
Python 2.7.10
Now check for Pip support
pip --help
Usage:
pip <command></command> [options]
If you do not have Pip installed here is a quick HOWTO
curl -O https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py
Now install the AWScli tools
pip install awscli
NOTE: Currently there is a bug in El Capitan because it already has six-1.4.1 installed and AWS CLI wants to install >=1.5 which causes another whole set of issues with Apple System Integration Protection. Still waiting for responses on the interwebs for a fix from apple. I would recommend using the bundled version in El Captain until this gets sorted out.
curl "https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-cli/awscli-bundle.zip" -o "awscli-bundle.zip"
unzip awscli-bundle.zip
sudo ./awscli-bundle/install -i /usr/local/aws -b /usr/local/bin/aws
Now you can verify it is all working with
aws --version
aws-cli/1.8.11 Python/2.7.10 Darwin/15.0.0
Now you will need to configure the CLI to allow for access to your account. You will need your accounts Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.
aws configure --profile yourprofilename
AWS Access Key ID [None]: YOURKEYGOESHERE
AWS Secret Access Key [None]: yoursecretkeygoeshere
Default region name [None]: us-east-1
Default output format [None]: json
On mac this will create the following file for reference.
/Users/username/.aws/credentials
Now verify you can pull data on your account.
aws ec2 describe-instances --profile yourprofilename
You can change many of your call on the CLI as far as –profile –output and –regions.
aws ec2 describe-instances --profile yourprofilename --output table --region us-west-2
