# Manage Amazon credentials
<a name="agent-credentials"></a>

Manage your Amazon credentials using one of the following methods:
+ Create a custom credentials provider. For details, see [Create custom credential providers](custom-cred-provider.md).
+ Specify an IAM role when you launch your EC2 instance.
+ Specify Amazon credentials when you configure the agent (see the entries for `awsAccessKeyId` and `awsSecretAccessKey` in the configuration table under [Specify agent configuration settings](agent-config-settings.md)).
+ Edit `/etc/sysconfig/aws-kinesis-agent` to specify your Amazon Region and Amazon access keys.
+ If your EC2 instance is in a different Amazon account, create an IAM role to provide access to the Amazon Data Firehose service. Specify that role when you configure the agent (see [assumeRoleARN](agent-config-settings.md#assumeRoleARN) and [assumeRoleExternalId](agent-config-settings.md#assumeRoleExternalId)). Use one of the previous methods to specify the Amazon credentials of a user in the other account who has permission to assume this role.