Amazon EC2 Credential Concepts

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: 2009-08-15

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Amazon EC2 Credential Concepts

This section describes major tasks and the credentials required to perform them.

Access Your Account

To sign up for services, view your bills, perform account-based tasks, and get many of your security credentials, you will need your standard Amazon login and password. For more information, see How to Log In with Your Amazon Login and Password.

[Note] Note

We also provide multi-factor authentication, which requires a physical device and passcode to login to your AWS account. For more information, go to http://aws.amazon.com/mfa.

Credentials to Launch and Administer Amazon EC2 Instances

To use Amazon EC2, you must get the right set of credentials. The set of credentials you need depends on how you access Amazon EC2. For information about getting credentials, see Using Credentials.

AWS Management Console

To launch and administer Amazon EC2 instances through the AWS Management Console, you only need the Amazon login and password. For more information, see How to Log In with Your Amazon Login and Password.

Query and Third Party UI Tools

Launching and administering Amazon EC2 instances through the Query APIs and many UI-based tools (e.g., ElasticFox) requires the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. For more information, see How to Get Your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

SOAP and EC2 Command Line Tools

Launching and administering Amazon EC2 instances through the SOAP APIs requires an X.509 certificate and private key, which can be generated by AWS. For more information, see How to Create an X.509 Certificate and Private Key.

Credentials to Connect to Amazon EC2 Instances

To connect to your instances, you need the following:

Credentials List

  • Amazon EC2 Key Pair—Enables you to connect to instances through SSH. For more information, see SSH Key Pair.

  • Windows administrator password (Windows only)—provides the "first-use" password which enables you to connect to a Windows instance through Remote Desktop. For more information, see Windows Administrator Password.

Credentials Needed for Sharing with Others

To enable other AWS accounts to use your Amazon EC2 AMIs and Amazon EBS snapshots, you need their AWS Account IDs. For information on how to get the AWS Account ID associated with your account,see ???.

Credentials Needed for Bundling Instances

To bundle Linux/UNIX instances, you need the following:

Credentials List

  • Access Key ID and Secret Access Key—Enables you to connect to instances through SSH. For more information, see SSH Key Pair.

  • X.509 certificate and private key—provides the "first-use" password which enables you to connect to a Windows instance through Remote Desktop. For more information, see Windows Administrator Password.

  • AWS Account ID—provides the "first-use" password which enables you to connect to a Windows instance through Remote Desktop. For more information, see Windows Administrator Password.

To bundle Windows instances, you need your Amazon login and password to access the AWS Management Console. For information about the Amazon login and password, see How to Log In with Your Amazon Login and Password.

[Note] Note

For information about bundling instances, see Creating and Preparing AMIs.

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