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Young Gyu Kim <credemol@gmail.com>

AWS Cloud Shell Setup Guide

cloud shell architecture

Overview

YouTube Video Tutorial: https://youtu.be/9qyVR5EEIes

This guide walks you through setting up AWS Cloud Shell to deploy Service Foundry using Helm charts. AWS Cloud Shell lets you manage AWS resources and Kubernetes clusters directly from your browser—no local installation required.

It’s especially useful for users who want a clean, preconfigured environment for working with AWS, EKS, Helm, and Git.

Prerequisites

  • An AWS account with sufficient permissions

  • Basic familiarity with AWS Cloud Shell and Kubernetes

What You’ll Learn

  • What AWS Cloud Shell is and how it works

  • How to set up Cloud Shell step‑by‑step

  • How to install and verify AWS CLI, kubectl, and Helm

  • How to connect Cloud Shell to your EKS cluster

  • How to configure Git credentials (optional)

What is AWS Cloud Shell?

AWS Cloud Shell is a browser‑based terminal environment that provides command‑line access to your AWS resources. It includes tools like AWS CLI, kubectl, and Git preinstalled and is automatically authenticated with your IAM identity.

For IAM users, the free tier includes 1 GB of persistent storage, and note that Cloud Shell cannot run a single long‑running task for more than 12 hours

Key Features

  • Ready to use — tools like AWS CLI are already installed

  • Automatically authenticated with your AWS credentials

  • Fully managed environment with no setup required

  • 1 GB of persistent user storage

Shell Session Behavior

  • Inactive sessions pause automatically after 20 minutes

  • Long‑running sessions are terminated after 12 hours, even if you stay active

Step‑by‑Step Setup

1. Launch AWS Cloud Shell

Log in to the AWS Management Console and click the Cloud Shell icon in the upper‑right corner.

aws console
Figure 1. AWS Cloud Shell - Launch

2. Verify AWS CLI Configuration

Cloud Shell automatically configures the AWS CLI. You can confirm the active settings:

$ aws configure list

Sample output:

NAME       : VALUE                    : TYPE             : LOCATION
profile    : <not set>                : None             : None
access_key : ****************HXWO     : container-role   :
secret_key : ****************99Rl     : container-role   :
region     : ca-central-1             : env              : ['AWS_REGION', 'AWS_DEFAULT_REGION']

3. Verify Installed Tools

Check that your key utilities are available:

$ aws --version
$ kubectl version --client
$ git --version

$ helm version
bash: helm: command not found

Helm is not preinstalled, so you’ll install it next.

4. Install Helm

If Helm is not installed, you can install it by running the following commands:

$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

$ helm version

5. Connect Cloud Shell to Your EKS Cluster

To update your Kubernetes configuration to connect to your EKS cluster, use the following command:

# Set your EKS cluster name
$ EKS_CLUSTER_NAME="your-eks-cluster-name"
$ aws eks update-kubeconfig --region $AWS_REGION --name $EKS_CLUSTER_NAME

Test the connection:

# Verify the connection
$ kubectl get nodes

# Permission denied error
E1126 19:22:33.267316     882 memcache.go:265] "Unhandled Error" err="couldn't get current server API group list: the server has asked for the client to provide credentials"

Check your IAM identity:

$ aws sts get-caller-identity --query Arn --output text

arn:aws:iam::44------:user/your-iam-user

This IAM ARN must be added to the aws-auth ConfigMap by an EKS admin.

View the existing config:

$ kubectl -n kube-system get configmap aws-auth -o yaml

An admin user should add:

$ kubectl edit configmap aws-auth -n kube-system

Add the following under mapUsers: section:

data:
  mapUsers: |
    - userarn: arn:aws:iam::44------:user/your-iam-user
      username: cloudshell-user
      groups:
        - system:masters

Save and exit the editor.

After updating, test again:

kubectl get nodes
$ kubectl get nodes

NAME                                             STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
ip-192-168-18-56.ca-central-1.compute.internal   Ready    <none>   3h14m   v1.33.5-eks-ecaa3a6

List Helm apps:

$  helm list -A
NAME                    NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                           APP VERSION
aws-cluster-autoscaler  kube-system     1               2025-11-26 09:25:19.295873 -0800 -0800  deployed        cluster-autoscaler-9.50.1       1.33.0

6. (Optional) Set Up Git Credentials

If you need to clone private repositories, configure SSH keys.

Generate a key pair:

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "emillian@servicefoundry.org" -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa

$ ls ~/.ssh/

id_rsa  id_rsa.pub

Add the public key to GitHub:

$ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
github add deploy key 1
Figure 2. Add the deploy key to your GitHub repository

Trust GitHub host key:

$ ssh-keyscan github.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

$ cat ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Clone a repository:

$ git clone git@github.com:nsalexamy/service-foundry-demo.git

7. You’re Ready to Go!

Cloud Shell is now configured with:

  • AWS CLI

  • kubectl

  • Helm

  • Optional Git SSH access

You can now manage AWS resources, connect to EKS clusters, and deploy Service Foundry using Helm.

Additional useful tools included in Cloud Shell:

  • yq — YAML processor

  • jq — JSON processor

Install yq if needed:

YQ_VERSION="v4.44.1" && TARGETARCH="amd64" && \
    curl -L https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/download/${YQ_VERSION}/yq_linux_${TARGETARCH} -o yq && \
    chmod +x yq && \
    sudo mv yq /usr/local/bin/yq

Conclusion

You’ve successfully configured AWS Cloud Shell for managing AWS resources and Kubernetes workloads. With AWS CLI, kubectl, Helm, and Git ready to go, you can deploy and manage Service Foundry directly from your browser.

Service Foundry also provides bootstrap scripts optimized for Cloud Shell to streamline deployments even further. Refer to the Service Foundry documentation for details.

📘 View the web version:

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