Custom endpoint URL to AWS using environment variable

Question

I am trying to set custom endpoint URL with AWS CLI to point to Localstack. This command works perfectly:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=test AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=test aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 s3 ls

However, for some reason, I don't want to use --endpoint-url option. I need to use environment variables. I read in the documentation about AWS_ENDPOINT_URL variable and I tried this:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=test AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=test AWS_ENDPOINT_URL=http://localhost:4566 aws s3 ls

But I get this error:

An error occurred (InvalidAccessKeyId) when calling the ListBuckets operation: The AWS Access Key Id you provided does not exist in our records.

It seems it's not going to Localstack, at least the AWS STS. I tried also setting the variables AWS_ENDPOINT_URL_STS and AWS_ENDPOINT_URL_S3 to http://localhost:4566, but I get the same error.

Answer 1

According to the changelog:

2.13.0

feature:configuration: Configure the endpoint URL in the shared configuration file or via an environment variable for a specific AWS service or all AWS services.

The endpoint URL configuration via environment variable was added in version 2.13.0, released around Jul 7, 2023.

Updating the AWS CLI to update to the latest version should fix this issue.

Answer 2

If you wish not to use --endpoint-url, you can use a custom profile. Add the following profile to your AWS configuration file (by default, this file is at ~/.aws/config):

[profile localstack]
region=us-east-1
output=json
endpoint_url = http://localhost:4566

Add the following profile to your AWS credentials file (by default, this file is at ~/.aws/credentials):

[localstack]
aws_access_key_id=test
aws_secret_access_key=test

You can now use the localstack profile with the aws CLI:

aws s3 mb s3://test --profile localstack
aws s3 ls --profile localstack

The command that you shared shouldn't ideally create an issue (it works on my end with aws-cli/2.13.32 Python/3.11.6 Darwin/21.4.0 exe/x86_64 prompt/off) but it would be worth checking your CLI version.