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 your Amazon account and the Amazon CLI

If you're not already an Amazon Web Services (Amazon) customer, you must sign up to be able to use Amazon Private CA. Your account automatically has access to all available services, but you are charged only for services that you use.

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:

Install the Amazon Command Line Interface

If you have not installed the Amazon CLI but want to use it, follow the directions at Amazon Command Line Interface. In this guide, we assume that you have configured your endpoint, Region, and authentication details, and we omit these parameters from the sample commands.