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Hilda Ogamba
Hilda Ogamba

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AWS Tools for PowerShell

Introduction

From the AWS documentation:

The AWS Tools for PowerShell are a set of PowerShell cmdlets that are built on top of the functionality exposed by the AWS SDK for .NET. The AWS Tools for PowerShell enable you to script operations on your AWS resources from the PowerShell command line.

Just like the AWS CLI, the AWS Tools for PowerShell let developers and administrators manage their AWS services and resources in the PowerShell scripting environment.

Installation and Configuration (on Windows)

These tools are only available from version on computers that are running Windows with Windows PowerShell 5.1, or PowerShell Core 6.0 or later.
Run the Windows PowerShell as Administrator.
Run the following command to install AWS Tools for PowerShell:

Install-Module -Name AWSPowerShell
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Answer "Y" to the interactive prompts.

Next, try to see if the application has installed correctly:

Get-AWSPowerShellVersion
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Incase you encounter errors stating that "... the module could not be loaded ..." or that the module "... cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system ...", you may need to change the Execution Policy.
Run the following command to change the Execution Policy:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
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Answer "Y" to the interactive prompts.

Next, set the proper AWS Credentials. If you don't have an administrator set up for your AWS account, follow the instructions here.
Once the administartor user has been set up, generate access keys for that user and securely store that information.

To add a new profile to the AWS SDK store, run the command (replace the AccessKey and SecretKey codes with the administrator access keys):

Set-AWSCredential `
                 -AccessKey AKIA0123456787EXAMPLE `
                 -SecretKey wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY `
                 -StoreAs Administrator
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Next, save the configuration as the default profile and region for every PowerShell session:

Initialize-AWSDefaultConfiguration -ProfileName Administrator -Region us-west-2
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AWS Tools for PowerShell Example Cmdlets

Here are some example cmdlets:

Create Key-Pair 

$myPSKeyPair = New-EC2KeyPair -KeyName myPSKeyPair
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View Key-Pair Details 

$myPSKeyPair | Get-Member
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Save Key-Pair 

$myPSKeyPair.KeyMaterial | Out-File -Encoding ascii myPSKeyPair.pem
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Remove Key Pair from AWS 

Remove-EC2KeyPair -KeyName myPSKeyPair
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Create Security Group 

New-EC2SecurityGroup -GroupName myPSSecurityGroup -GroupDescription "EC2-Classic from PowerShell"
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View Security Groups 

Get-EC2SecurityGroup -GroupNames myPSSecurityGroup
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Remove Security Group 

Remove-EC2SecurityGroup -GroupId sg-0113e926ee099393f
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Launch an instance 

New-EC2Instance -ImageId ami-0ca285d4c2cda3300 `
    -MinCount 1 `
    -MaxCount 1 `
    -KeyName myPSKeyPair `
    -SecurityGroups myPSSecurityGroup `
    -InstanceType t2.micro
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View Instance 

$reservation = New-Object 'collections.generic.list[string]'
$reservation.add("r-b70a0ef1")
$filter_reservation = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Filter -Property @{Name = "reservation-id"; Values = $reservation}
(Get-EC2Instance -Filter $filter_reservation).Instances
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Terminate Instance 

Remove-EC2Instance -InstanceId i-0453116cdface121d
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List Buckets 

Get-S3Bucket
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Create a bucket 

New-S3Bucket -BucketName uniquebucketname2258 -Region us-west-2
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Upload an object to the bucket 

Write-S3Object -BucketName uniquebucketname2258 -File .\sample.txt
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List Bucket Contents 

Get-S3Object -BucketName uniquebucketname2258
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Delete Bucket and its objects 

Remove-S3Bucket -BucketName uniquebucketname2258 -DeleteBucketContent
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List Users 

Get-IAMUserList
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Create a user 

New-IAMUser -UserName Bob
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Create a new group 

New-IAMGroup -GroupName DummyGroup
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Add users to group 

Add-IAMUserToGroup -UserName "Bob" -GroupName "DummyGroup"
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List the group, group details and its users 

$results = Get-IAMGroup -GroupName "DummyGroup"
$results
$results.Group
$results.Users
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Removes all users from a group and then deletes the group 

(Get-IAMGroup -GroupName DummyGroup).Users | Remove-IAMUserFromGroup -GroupName DummyGroup -Force
Remove-IAMGroup -GroupName DummyGroup -Force
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Deletes a user 

Remove-IAMUser -UserName Bob
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For more information on AWS Tools for PowerShell visit AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference page

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