The most basic task needed to get started with AWS is to have a user account, so it is natural to create a specific user account when accessing AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) for a specific purpose. This post will detail how to create a user that has read-only rights to S3 and Glacier Storage so that bucket content size can be determined. The details of how to install the AWS Command Line Interface can be found here and details of the setup are in linked documents from there.
AWS Command Line Interface User Setup
- Connect to AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
- Click on “Users” on the left hand side.
- Click on the “Create New User” button at the top.
- Type in the username desired and leave the checkbox “Generate an access key for each user” checked then click the “Create” button at the bottom.

- On this screen make sure to record the “Access Key ID” and “Secret Access Key” that will be needed when setting up AWS CLI software.

- Click on the “close” link twice to exit.
- Click on the username of the user just created, then click on the “Attach Policy” button to give the user proper rights.

- Select “AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess” and “AmazonGlacierReadOnlyAccess” from the list, then click on the “Attach Policy” button.
Once connected to the AWS Command Line Interface software commands can be run to check bucket content size which will be covered in an alternate post. If your company is using Amazon Web Services or S3 Storage and need help getting it setup properly, then contact us for assistance.