Configure environment variables for an Alibaba Cloud AccessKey pair and configure environment variables in the runtime environment of Alibaba Cloud SDK sample code - Alibaba Cloud SDK

Environment variables are operating system-specific system-level parameters whose names and values are specific. Environment variables provide runtime environment settings for applications running on an operating system. This topic describes how to configure an AccessKey pair in environment variables of Linux, macOS, and Windows.

An Alibaba Cloud account has permissions on all resources within the account. Using Alibaba Cloud accounts to perform operations is highly risky. We recommend that you use a Resource Access Management (RAM) user to access resources or perform routine O&M. If you want to call API operations as a RAM user, you must grant the required permissions to the RAM user. This way, you can perform operations on the corresponding resources as a RAM user. For information about how to obtain the AccessKey pair of a RAM user, see Create an AccessKey pair, Grant permissions to a RAM user, and View the information about AccessKey pairs of a RAM user. When you use an AccessKey pair to call API operations, do not pass the AccessKey pair in plaintext in the code. Configure environment variables or use other secure solutions in which the AccessKey pair is non-plaintext.

Configure an AccessKey pair in the environment variables of Linux and macOS

In this example, the ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID and ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET environment variables are configured. You can replace the variable names based on your business requirements, such as OSS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and OSS_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET.

Configure environment variables by using the export command

Important

The temporary environment variables configured by using the export command are valid only for the current session. After you exit the session, the configured environment variables become invalid. To configure permanent environment variables, you can add the export command to the startup configuration file of the corresponding operating system.

Configure the AccessKey ID and press Enter.

# Replace <ACCESS_KEY_ID> with your AccessKey ID. 
export ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<ACCESS_KEY_ID>

Configure the AccessKey secret and press Enter.

# Replace <ACCESS_KEY_SECRET> with your AccessKey secret. 
export ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET=<ACCESS_KEY_SECRET>

Check whether the configuration is successful.
Run the echo $ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID command. If the valid AccessKey ID is returned, the environment variables are configured.

Configure an AccessKey pair in the environment variables of Windows

Use GUI

Procedure

If you want to use GUI to configure environment variables in Windows 10, perform the following steps:

On the Windows desktop, right-click This PC and select Properties. On the page that appears, click Advanced system settings. In the System Properties dialog box, click Environment Variables on the Advanced tab. In the Environment Variables dialog box, click New in the User variables or System variables section. Then, configure the variables described in the following table.

Variable	Example
AccessKey ID	Variable name: ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID Variable value: LTAI4GDty8ab9W4Y1D****
AccessKey Secret	Variable name: ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET Variable value: IrVTNZNy5yQelTETg0cZML3TQn****

Check whether the configuration is successful.
On the Windows desktop, click Start or press Win + R. In the Run dialog box, enter cmd. Then, click OK or press Enter. On the page that appears, run the echo %ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID% and echo %ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET% commands. If the valid AccessKey pair is returned, the configuration is successful.

Use CMD

Procedure
Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator and run the following commands to add environment variables in the operating system:
```
setx ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID LTAI4GDty8ab9W4Y1D**** /M
setx ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET IrVTNZNy5yQelTETg0cZML3TQn**** /M
```
/M indicates that the environment variable is of system level. You can choose not to use this parameter when you configure a user-level environment variable.
Check whether the configuration is successful.
On the Windows desktop, click Start or press Win + R. In the Run dialog box, enter cmd. Then, click OK or press Enter. On the page that appears, run the echo %ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID% and echo %ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET% commands. If the valid AccessKey pair is returned, the configuration is successful.

Use Windows PowerShell

In PowerShell, configure new environment variables. The environment variables apply to all new sessions.

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID', 'LTAI4GDty8ab9W4Y1D****', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET', 'IrVTNZNy5yQelTETg0cZML3TQn****', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)

Configure environment variables for all users. You must run the following commands as an administrator.

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID', 'LTAI4GDty8ab9W4Y1D****', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET', 'IrVTNZNy5yQelTETg0cZML3TQn****', [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)

Configure temporary environment variables. The environment variables apply only to the current session.

$env:ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID = "LTAI4GDty8ab9W4Y1D****"
$env:ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET = "IrVTNZNy5yQelTETg0cZML3TQn****"

In PowerShell, run the Get-ChildItem env:ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_ID and Get-ChildItem env:ALIBABA_CLOUD_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET commands. If the valid AccessKey pair is returned, the configuration is successful.

Important

After you configure the environment variables, restart your development tools or services, such as the integrated development environment (IDE). Otherwise, the new settings may not take effect as expected.