AWS CLI Cheat Sheet

Common AWS CLI commands for EC2, S3, IAM, and other essential services. Complete reference guide with copy-paste ready commands.

EC2

aws ec2 describe-instances

List EC2 instances

aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids <id>

Start an instance

aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids <id>

Stop an instance

aws ec2 terminate-instances --instance-ids <id>

Terminate an instance

aws ec2 describe-security-groups

List security groups

S3

aws s3 ls

List S3 buckets

aws s3 ls s3://<bucket>

List bucket contents

aws s3 cp <file> s3://<bucket>/

Upload file to S3

aws s3 sync <dir> s3://<bucket>/

Sync directory to S3

aws s3 rm s3://<bucket>/<key>

Delete S3 object

IAM

aws iam list-users

List IAM users

aws iam list-roles

List IAM roles

aws iam get-user

Get current user details

aws sts get-caller-identity

Get current identity