User guide

Set Up your AWS Credentials for Use with the

SDK for Java

To connect to any of the supported services with the SDK for Java, you must provide your AWS credentials.

The AWS SDKs and CLIs use provider chains to look for AWS credentials in a number of different places,

including system or user environment variables and local AWS configuration files.

Setting your credentials for use by the SDK for Java can be done in a number of ways, but here are the

recommended approaches:

• Set credentials in the AWS credentials profile file on your local system, located at:

• ~/.aws/credentials on Linux, OS X, or Unix

• C:\Users\USERNAME\.aws\credentials on Windows

This file should contain lines in the following format:

[default]

aws_access_key_id = your_access_key_id

aws_secret_access_key = your_secret_access_key

Substitute your own AWS credentials values for the values your_access_key_id and

your_secret_access_key.

• Set the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables.

To set these variables in Linux, OS X, or Unix, use export:

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_access_key_id

export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret_access_key

To set these variables in Windows, use set:

set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_access_key_id

set AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_secret_access_key

• To set credentials for an EC2 instance, you should specify an IAM role and then give your EC2 instance

access to that role as shown in Using IAM Roles for EC2 Instances (p. 30).

Once you have set your AWS credentials using one of these methods, they can be loaded automatically

by the SDK for Java by using the default credential provider chain. For complete information about how

to load and use AWS credentials in your SDK for Java applications, see Providing Credentials (p. 9).

Note

You can override the default location of the AWS credential file by setting the

AWS_CREDENTIAL_FILE environment variable. For more information, see Providing

Credentials (p. 9).

Version v1.0.0

AWS SDK for Java Developer Guide

Set Up your AWS Credentials for Use with the SDK for

Java