# Before you set up Amazon EMR
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Complete the preliminary tasks detailed in this section before you launch an Amazon EMR cluster for the first time. These include setting up your Amazon account if you need one and taking steps to set up secure communication.

## Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account
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If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

**To sign up for Amazon Web Services**

1. Open [http://www.amazonaws.cn/](http://www.amazonaws.cn/) and choose **Sign Up**.

1. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to [http://www.amazonaws.cn/](http://www.amazonaws.cn/) and choosing **My Account**.

## Secure IAM users
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After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see [Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console)](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_mfa_enable_virtual.html#enable-virt-mfa-for-iam-user) in the *IAM User Guide*.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the *IAM User Guide*: 
+ [Creating an IAM user in your Amazon Web Services account](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_users_create.html)
+ [Access management for Amazon resources](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access.html)
+ [Example IAM identity-based policies](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_examples.html)

## Create an Amazon EC2 key pair for SSH
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**Note**  
With Amazon EMR release versions 5.10.0 or later, you can configure Kerberos to authenticate users and SSH connections to a cluster. For more information, see [Use Kerberos for authentication with Amazon EMR](emr-kerberos.md).

To authenticate and connect to the nodes in a cluster over a secure channel using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, create an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) key pair before you launch the cluster. You can also create a cluster without a key pair. This is usually done with transient clusters that start, run steps, and then terminate automatically.


| If... | Then... | 
| --- | --- | 
| You already have an Amazon EC2 key pair that you want to use, or you don't need to authenticate to your cluster. | Skip this step. | 
| You need to create a key pair. | See [Creating your key pair using Amazon EC2](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html#having-ec2-create-your-key-pair). | 

## Next steps
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+ For guidance on creating a sample cluster, see [Tutorial: Getting started with Amazon EMR](emr-gs.md).
+ For more information on how to configure a custom cluster and control access to it, see [Plan, configure and launch Amazon EMR clusters](emr-plan.md) and [Security in Amazon EMR](emr-security.md).