When you need an AWS command line toolset not provided by Ubuntu packages, you can download the tools directly from Amazon and install them locally.
In a previous article I provided instructions on how to install AWS command line tools using Ubuntu packages. That method is slightly easier to set up and easier to upgrade when Ubuntu releases updates. However, the Ubuntu packages aren’t always up to date with the latest from Amazon and there are not yet Ubuntu packages published for every AWS command line tools you might want to use.
Unfortunately, Amazon does not have one single place where you can download all the command line tools for the various services, nor are all of the tools installed in the same way, nor do they all use the same format for accessing the AWS credentials.
The following steps show how I install and configure the AWS command line tools provided by Amazon when I don’t use the packages provided by Ubuntu.