Solution for switching versions of the AWS CLIv2

[dmarinuswoodwing]

Describe the feature

Be able to easily install multiple versions of the AWS CLIv2 and easily switch versions (like asdf-vm.com or python venv).

Use Case

We have different projects using the AWS CLI from Makefiles/shell scripts.

The AWS CLI (luckily!) gets updated very often and it's features are extended and behavior is changed.

For not breaking our projects (when the behavior changed or a feature is not available by the installed AWS CLI) we currently install a specific AWS CLI in a Python virtualenv (using pip).

AWS CLIv2 won't be available on PyPI (to be installed by pip) so we need a different solution.

Proposed Solution

1. Provide something that installs AWS CLIv2 to a specific location (OS/Machine dependent I guess)
2. Provide an "aws" shim that can be configured (using an environment variable or a file from a parent directoy) to use a specific version of AWS CLIv2

Other Information

No response

Acknowledgements

• I may be able to implement this feature request
• This feature might incur a breaking change

CLI version used

v2

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

Any

[tim-finnigan]

Hi @dmarinuswoodwing thanks for the feature request. As mentioned in this comment you can control where the install dir lives using the -i parameter, for example:

$ ./install -i /opt/aws-cli

And you can install past versions of the CLI by appending the version number as documented here:

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64-2.0.30.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"

(Here is a link to the v2 CHANGELOG for a list of versions.)

You can create virtual environments with different versions and switch between them as needed (which it sounds like you are already doing). We recommend using a recent version of v2 for access to the latest updates. Could you expand more on your use case for switching between versions and how you are limited by your current approach?

[dmarinuswoodwing]

I'm looking for a cross platform (macos/linux/windows) generic way of installing a specific the AWS CLI and making sure the proper version is used for a certain project.

Running manual curl/unzip/install tasks with multiple arguments is really error prone.

I'm looking for something really straight forward to install the right version of AWS CLI for a certain project and gives me a way to assert that which aws is really the right version.

[tim-finnigan]

Thanks for following up and expanding on your use case. I think it would be good to have more community discussion here regarding this feature request. Specifically around use cases, current limitations, various workarounds, and possible implementations for the requested feature. Anyone who is interested in this can also add a 👍 to the original post to show support.