CloudAccess Tools for EC2 To use the EC2 Command Line Tools: Download the Command Line Tools from http://aws.amazon.com/developertools/351 (For this example) Unpack the contents into ~/.ec2 Set up your environment: # Thanks http://www.johnnypez.com/design-development/unable-to-find-a-java_home-at-on-mac-osx/ export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home # http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/index.html?SettingUp_CommandLine.html export EC2_HOME=~/.ec2/ec2-api-tools-1.4.2.4 export PATH=$PATH:$EC2_HOME/bin # AWS PEMs: export EC2_PRIVATE_KEY=~/.ec2/aws-my-pk.pem export EC2_CERT=~/.ec2/aws-my-cert.pem # ec2-describe-regions export EC2_URL=https://ec2.us-west-1.amazonaws.com To use the CloudAccess Tools for EC2 See the Examples