Install AWS CLI & Terraform on macOS

Introduction

As I continue my journey into Cloud Engineering and DevOps, one of the first tools I needed to set up on my system was the AWS CLI and Terraform.

These tools are extremely important for cloud engineers because they allow you to interact with cloud services and automate infrastructure directly from your terminal. I decided to set up my local development environment so I could interact with AWS directly from my terminal and automate infrastructure using code.

In this guide, I will walk you through the exact steps I used to install AWS CLI and Terraform on my MacBook Air running macOS. This tutorial is beginner-friendly and designed for anyone starting their journey in Cloud Computing or DevOps.

Two essential tools for this are:

AWS CLI (Command Line Interface)
Terraform

What is AWS CLI?

The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is a tool that allows you to manage AWS services from your terminal instead of using the AWS Management Console.

With AWS CLI you can:

Create EC2 instances
Manage S3 buckets
Configure IAM
Automate cloud tasks

Using the CLI is very important in DevOps workflows because it allows engineers to automate tasks and build scripts.

What is Terraform?

Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool developed by HashiCorp.

It allows you to create and manage cloud infrastructure using code instead of manually clicking in the console.

With Terraform you can:

Launch servers
Create networks
Configure load balancers
Deploy full cloud architectures

This makes infrastructure reproducible, scalable, and automated.

In this guide, I will walk through the exact steps I followed to:

Install AWS CLI on macOS
Generate AWS Access Keys
Configure AWS CLI
Install Terraform
Verify the installations
Deploy a VPC and EC2 instance using Terraform

This guide is beginner-friendly and perfect for anyone starting their cloud or DevOps journey.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following:

A MacBook running macOS
An AWS account
Internet connection
Basic familiarity with the terminal

Step 1: Opening the Terminal on macOS

The first thing I did was open the Terminal application on my MacBook.

Steps:

Press Command + Space
Search for Terminal
Press Enter

This opens the command line interface where we will run all our commands.

Step 2: Installing Homebrew (macOS Package Manager)

Before installing AWS CLI and Terraform, I installed Homebrew.

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that makes it easy to install developer tools directly from the terminal.

I ran the following command in the terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

This command automatically downloads and installs Homebrew.

After the installation finished, I confirmed that Homebrew was successfully installed by running:

brew --version

If Homebrew is installed correctly, it should display the version number.

and

Step 3: Installing AWS CLI

Next, I installed the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) using Homebrew.

AWS CLI allows you to manage AWS services such as:

directly from your terminal.

To install AWS CLI, I ran:

brew install awscli

Homebrew downloaded and installed the latest version automatically.

Step 4: Verifying AWS CLI Installation

After the installation completed, I verified the installation by running:

aws --version

If the installation was successful, the terminal displays something similar to:

aws-cli/2.x.x Python/3.x Darwin/x86_64

Step 5: Generating AWS Access Keys

Before configuring AWS CLI, I needed to generate AWS Access Keys from the AWS Management Console.

Steps I followed:

Logged into the AWS Console
Navigated to IAM
Clicked Users
Selected my user account
Clicked Security Credentials
Created Access Key

AWS then generated:

Access Key ID
Secret Access Key

These keys allow the AWS CLI to securely connect to my AWS account.

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Step 6: Configuring AWS CLI

After generating the access keys, I configured AWS CLI on my MacBook.

I ran the command:

aws configure

The terminal prompted me to enter:

AWS Access Key ID
AWS Secret Access Key
Default region
Output format

Example:

AWS Access Key ID: ***************
AWS Secret Access Key: ***************
Default region name: us-east-1
Default output format: json

After entering these details, the AWS CLI was successfully connected to my AWS account.

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Step 7: Testing AWS CLI Connection

To confirm that the configuration worked correctly, I tested the connection using:

aws s3 ls

This command lists all S3 buckets in your AWS account.

If everything is configured correctly, the CLI returns your bucket list.

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Step 8: Installing Terraform

After successfully setting up AWS CLI, the next step was installing Terraform.

Terraform is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool that allows engineers to provision cloud infrastructure using configuration files.

I installed Terraform using Homebrew with the following command:

brew install terraform

Homebrew downloaded and installed Terraform automatically.

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Step 9: Verifying Terraform Installation

After installation, I verified that Terraform was installed correctly by running:

terraform version

If successful, Terraform displays its version number.

Example output:

Terraform v1.x.x

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Step 10: Creating Terraform Configuration

After installing Terraform, I created a Terraform project folder and configuration file.

First, I created a new directory:

mkdir terraform-project
cd terraform-project

Then I created a Terraform configuration file:

main.tf

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Step 11: Writing Terraform Code to Create a VPC

In the main.tf file, I defined a VPC resource.

Example configuration:

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

resource "aws_vpc" "my_vpc" {
  cidr_block = "10.0.0.0/16"
}

This code tells Terraform to create a VPC in AWS.

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Terraform VPC configuration

Step 12: Creating an EC2 Instance with Terraform

Next, I added an EC2 instance resource to the Terraform configuration.

Example:



# Create Subnet
resource "aws_subnet" "my_subnet" {
  vpc_id     = aws_vpc.my_vpc.id
  cidr_block = "10.0.1.0/24"

  tags = {
    Name = "my-subnet"
  }
}

# Create EC2 Instance
resource "aws_instance" "my_ec2" {
  ami           = "ami-0694d931cee176e7d"
  instance_type = "t2.micro"
  subnet_id     = aws_subnet.my_subnet.id

  tags = {
    Name = "Terraform-EC2"
  }
}

This configuration instructs Terraform to create a t2.micro EC2 instance.