{
    "content": "<h3>Overview of the <a href=\"..\/.aws\/credentials\/\">.aws\/credentials<\/a> File<\/h3><p>The <a href=\"..\/.aws\/credentials\/\">.aws\/credentials<\/a> file is a local configuration file used by the <a href=\"..\/AWS-CLI\/\">AWS-CLI<\/a> and various <a href=\"..\/AWS-SDKs\/\">AWS-SDKs<\/a> to store sensitive <a href=\"..\/AWS-Access-Keys\/\">AWS-Access-Keys<\/a>. This file is typically located in the <code>.aws<\/code> subdirectory of the user's home directory on <a href=\"..\/Linux\/\">Linux<\/a>, <a href=\"..\/macOS\/\">macOS<\/a>, or <a href=\"..\/Windows\/\">Windows<\/a> operating systems. It serves as a central repository for <a href=\"..\/Authentication\/\">Authentication<\/a> secrets required to make programmatic calls to <a href=\"..\/Amazon-Web-Services\/\">Amazon-Web-Services<\/a>.<\/p><p>The file is organized into <a href=\"..\/Named-Profiles\/\">Named-Profiles<\/a> using a standard INI format. Each section, denoted by square brackets such as <code>[default]<\/code> or <code>[user-production]<\/code>, contains the <code>aws_access_key_id<\/code> and <code>aws_secret_access_key<\/code>. When a developer executes a command using the <a href=\"..\/AWS-Command-Line-Interface\/\">AWS-Command-Line-Interface<\/a>, the tool looks for these values to sign requests. If <a href=\"..\/Multi-Factor-Authentication\/\">Multi-Factor-Authentication<\/a> is required, or if using <a href=\"..\/AWS-STS\/\">AWS-STS<\/a>, an additional <code>aws_session_token<\/code> field may be included for temporary access.<\/p><p>Security is a critical aspect of managing the <a href=\"..\/.aws\/credentials\/\">.aws\/credentials<\/a> file. Because it contains plaintext secrets, users must ensure that file system permissions are restricted (e.g., <code>chmod 600<\/code> on Unix-like systems) to prevent unauthorized access by other users on the same machine. For higher security environments, many organizations prefer using the <a href=\"..\/Credential-Process\/\">Credential-Process<\/a> setting or <a href=\"..\/AWS-IAM-Identity-Center\/\">AWS-IAM-Identity-Center<\/a> to avoid storing long-term secrets on disk. Further technical details can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/cli\/latest\/userguide\/cli-configure-files.html\">AWS CLI Configuration Guide<\/a>.<\/p><ul><li><a href=\"..\/AWS-Config-File\/\">AWS-Config-File<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"..\/IAM-Users\/\">IAM-Users<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"..\/AWS-Environment-Variables\/\">AWS-Environment-Variables<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"..\/Instance-Metadata-Service\/\">Instance-Metadata-Service<\/a><\/li><\/ul>",
    "tags": [
        "aws",
        "credentials",
        "iam",
        "security",
        "cli",
        "configuration",
        "authentication",
        "cloud",
        "devops",
        "aws-sdk"
    ]
}