AWS CLI for Cloud Automation: Shell Scripting + Cloud Power

What is AWS CLI?

✅ AWS CLI = Amazon Web Services Command Line Interface

✅ It lets you control AWS services from your terminal —

without touching the web console.

✅ You can automate:

• EC2 instance management
• S3 bucket operations
• EKS (Kubernetes) cluster setups
• CloudWatch monitoring
• IAM user/role setup
• VPC, security group configurations

✅ One line = Full cloud operations.

🛠️ Why Shell + AWS CLI = Automation Superpower?

✅ Shell scripting gives you local automation.

✅ AWS CLI connects your scripts to the cloud.

✅ Together, you can:

• Create servers
• Monitor resources
• Rotate logs
• Backup databases
• Scale Kubernetes clusters
• Clean up unused cloud resources

✅ Shell scripting + AWS CLI = Real-world DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineering.

🛠️ How to Install AWS CLI

✅ Install:

sudo apt install awscli   # (for Ubuntu/Debian)

        

or

brew install awscli       # (for Mac)

        

✅ Configure:

aws configure

        

It asks for:

• Access Key
• Secret Key
• Region (like us-west-2)
• Output format (json, table, text)

✅ After configuration, you are ready to automate AWS from your terminal!

📚 Example 1: Launch a New EC2 Instance

aws ec2 run-instances \\
  --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 \\
  --count 1 \\
  --instance-type t2.micro \\
  --key-name my-keypair \\
  --security-groups my-security-group

        

✅ Creates a new EC2 instance programmatically!

📚 Example 2: Upload a File to S3

aws s3 cp /path/to/myfile.txt s3://my-bucket-name/

        

✅ One line — your file is now on AWS Cloud Storage!

📚 Example 3: List All Running EC2 Instances

aws ec2 describe-instances \\
  --query "Reservations[].Instances[].{ID:InstanceId,State:State.Name}" \\
  --output table

        

✅ Pulls a beautiful table of running servers.

📚 Example 4: EKS Cluster Info (Kubernetes)

aws eks list-clusters

        

✅ Lists all managed Kubernetes clusters.

✅ You can combine AWS CLI + kubectl for total automation!

📚 Example 5: CloudWatch Metrics (Monitoring)

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics \\
  --namespace AWS/EC2 \\
  --metric-name CPUUtilization \\
  --dimensions Name=InstanceId,Value=i-1234567890abcdef0 \\
  --start-time 2023-09-01T00:00:00Z \\
  --end-time 2023-09-01T23:59:59Z \\
  --period 3600 \\
  --statistics Average

        

✅ Auto-pull server CPU monitoring data via CloudWatch!

🧠 Simple Analogy

AWS CLI is like having a remote control 🎛️ for your entire cloud:

• Press one button → Spin up servers
• Press another → Store files
• Another button → Monitor everything

✅ Without AWS CLI = Manual clicking

✅ With AWS CLI = Total automated control.

Professional-grade automation = Smart CLI + Smart scripting.

🗺️ Where Are We in the Journey?

Linux Fundamentals → Kubernetes Observability → Shell Basics → Cron Jobs → Log Rotation → Script Security → (Now) Cloud Automation with AWS CLI

        

✅ You’re now moving from local automation ➔ cloud-wide orchestration!