🚀 AWS CLI - 50 Most Important Commands

Most Useful & Frequently Used Commands

1. Configuration & Basics

aws configure

Set up AWS credentials, region, and output format

aws --version

Check AWS CLI version

aws configure list

Show current configuration

aws sts get-caller-identity

Show current AWS account and user details

2. S3 Commands

aws s3 ls

List all S3 buckets

aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket

List objects inside a bucket

aws s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/

Upload file to S3

aws s3 cp s3://my-bucket/file.txt .

Download file from S3

aws s3 sync . s3://my-bucket/folder/

Sync local folder to S3

aws s3 sync s3://my-bucket/ .

Sync S3 bucket to local

aws s3 rm s3://my-bucket/file.txt

Delete file from S3

aws s3 mb s3://new-bucket

Create new S3 bucket

3. EC2 Commands

aws ec2 describe-instances

List all EC2 instances

aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-0xxxxxxxxxxxx

Start EC2 instance

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-0xxxxxxxxxxxx

Stop EC2 instance

aws ec2 reboot-instances --instance-ids i-0xxxxxxxxxxxx

Reboot EC2 instance

aws ec2 describe-security-groups

List security groups

aws ec2 describe-key-pairs

List key pairs

4. VPC & Networking

aws ec2 describe-vpcs

List all VPCs

aws ec2 describe-subnets

List all subnets

aws ec2 describe-route-tables

List route tables

aws ec2 describe-internet-gateways

List Internet Gateways

aws ec2 describe-nat-gateways

List NAT Gateways

aws ec2 describe-vpc-peering-connections

List VPC peering connections

5. IAM Commands

aws iam list-users

List all IAM users

aws iam list-roles

List all IAM roles

aws iam list-policies

List IAM policies

aws iam list-groups

List IAM groups

6. Lambda Commands

aws lambda list-functions

List all Lambda functions

aws lambda invoke --function-name my-function output.json

Invoke Lambda function

aws lambda get-function --function-name my-function

Get details of a Lambda function

7. RDS Commands

aws rds describe-db-instances

List all RDS instances

aws rds describe-db-clusters

List Aurora DB clusters

aws rds describe-db-snapshots

List RDS snapshots

8. EKS Commands

aws eks list-clusters

List all EKS clusters

aws eks describe-cluster --name my-cluster

Get details of an EKS cluster

aws eks list-nodegroups --cluster-name my-cluster

List node groups in EKS cluster

9. CloudWatch Commands

aws cloudwatch list-metrics

List all CloudWatch metrics

aws logs describe-log-groups

List CloudWatch Log Groups

aws logs get-log-events --log-group-name my-log-group --log-stream-name my-stream

Get log events

aws cloudwatch describe-alarms

List CloudWatch alarms

10. Other Important Commands

aws cloudformation list-stacks

List CloudFormation stacks

aws ecs list-clusters

List ECS clusters

aws dynamodb list-tables

List DynamoDB tables

aws sns list-topics

List SNS topics

aws sqs list-queues

List SQS queues

aws route53 list-hosted-zones

List Route53 hosted zones

aws s3api list-buckets

List buckets using low-level API

aws ec2 describe-volumes

List EBS volumes

aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers

List Application/Network Load Balancers