Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Setting up

This topic describes preliminary steps, such as creating an Amazon Web Services account, to prepare you to use Amazon CloudFront.

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.

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/ and choosing My Account.

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:

Set up the Amazon Command Line Interface or Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell

The Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI) is a unified tool for managing Amazon services. For information about how to install and configure the Amazon CLI, see Getting Set Up with the Amazon Command Line Interface in the Amazon Command Line Interface User Guide.

If you have experience with Windows PowerShell, you might prefer to use Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell. For more information, see Setting up the Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell in the Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

Download an Amazon SDK

If you're using a programming language that Amazon provides an SDK for, we recommend that you use an SDK instead of the Amazon CloudFront API. The SDKs make authentication simpler, integrate easily with your development environment, and provide easy access to CloudFront commands. For more information, see Tools to Build on Amazon.