Setting up Amazon SQS
Before you can use Amazon SQS for the first time, you must complete the following steps.
Topics
Step 1: Create an Amazon Web Services account and IAM user
To access any Amazon service, you first need to create an Amazon Web Services account
To avoid using your Amazon Web Services account root user for Amazon SQS actions, it is a best practice to create an IAM user for each person who needs administrative access to Amazon SQS.
Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account
If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.
To sign up for Amazon Web Services
Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/
and choose Sign Up. 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/
Secure IAM users
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) 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:
Step 2: Grant programmatic access
To use Amazon SQS actions (for example, using Java or through the Amazon Command Line Interface), you need an access key ID and a secret access key.
Note
The access key ID and secret access key are specific to Amazon Identity and Access Management. Don't confuse them with credentials for other Amazon services, such as Amazon EC2 key pairs.
Users need programmatic access if they want to interact with Amazon outside of the Amazon Web Services Management Console. The Amazon APIs and the Amazon Command Line Interface require access keys. Whenever possible, create temporary credentials that consist of an access key ID, a secret access key, and a security token that indicates when the credentials expire.
To grant users programmatic access, choose one of the following options.
| Which user needs programmatic access? | To | By |
|---|---|---|
| IAM | Use short-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs). | Following the instructions in Using temporary credentials with Amazon resources in the IAM User Guide. |
| IAM | (Not recommended) Use long-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs). |
Following the instructions in Managing access keys for IAM users in the IAM User Guide. |
Step 3: Get ready to use the example code
This guide includes examples that use the Amazon SDK for Java. To run the example code, follow the set-up instructions in Getting Started with Amazon SDK for Java 2.0.
You can develop Amazon applications in other programming languages, such as Go,
JavaScript, Python and Ruby. For more information, see Tools for developing and managing applications on
Amazon
Note
You can explore Amazon SQS without writing code with tools such as the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI) or Windows PowerShell. You can find Amazon CLI examples in the Amazon SQS section of the Amazon CLI Command Reference. You can find Windows PowerShell examples in the Amazon Simple Queue Service section of the Amazon Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference.
Next steps
You are now ready for Getting started with managing Amazon SQS queues and messages using the Amazon Web Services Management Console.