Setting up the EB command line interface (EB CLI) to manage Elastic Beanstalk - AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Install EB CLIManual installationInstall in virtualenvInstall the EB CLI with homebrew

Setting up the EB command line interface (EB CLI) to manage Elastic Beanstalk

The EB CLI is a command line interface which provides interactive commands to create, update, and monitor environments in AWS Elastic Beanstalk. The EB CLI open-source project is on Github: aws/aws-elastic-beanstalk-cli

After you install the EB CLI and configure a project directory, you can create environments with a single command:

$ eb create <my-beanstalk-environment>

We recommend installing with the setup script, learn how in Install EB CLI with setup script (recommended).

The AWS CLI provides direct access to low-level Elastic Beanstalk APIs. Although powerful, it is also verbose and less preferred over the EB CLI. For example, creating an environment with the AWS CLI requires the following series of commands:

$ aws elasticbeanstalk check-dns-availability \
    --cname-prefix my-cname
$ aws elasticbeanstalk create-application-version \
    --application-name my-application \
    --version-label v1 \
    --source-bundle S3Bucket=amzn-s3-demo-bucket,S3Key=php-proxy-sample.zip
$ aws elasticbeanstalk create-environment \
    --cname-prefix my-cname \
    --application-name my-app \
    --version-label v1 \
    --environment-name my-env \
    --solution-stack-name "64bit Amazon Linux 2023 v4.5.0 running Ruby 3.4"

Install EB CLI with setup script (recommended)

We recommend the installer script

We recommend using the installer script to set up the EB CLI and its dependencies and prevent potential conflicts with other Python packages.

Pre-requisites: Git, Python, and virtualenv

To download and use the installer script

  1. Clone the repository.

    git clone https://github.com/aws/aws-elastic-beanstalk-cli-setup.git

  2. Install or upgrade the EB CLI.

    macOS / Linux in Bash or Zsh

    python ./aws-elastic-beanstalk-cli-setup/scripts/ebcli_installer.py

    Windows in PowerShell or Command window

    python .\aws-elastic-beanstalk-cli-setup\scripts\ebcli_installer.py

  3. Verify that the EB CLI is installed correctly.

    $ eb --version
EB CLI 3.21.0 (Python 3.12)

For complete installation instructions, see the aws/aws-elastic-beanstalk-cli-setup repository on GitHub.

Manually install the EB CLI

You can install the EB CLI on Linux, macOS, and Windows with the pip package manager for Python which provides installation, upgrade, and removal of Python packages and their dependencies.

We recommend the installer script

We recommend using the Install EB CLI to set up the EB CLI and prevent dependency conflicts.

Prerequisite - You must have a supported version of Python installed. You can download it from the Python downloads page on the Python website.

To install the EB CLI (manually)

  1. Run the following command.

    $ pip install awsebcli --upgrade --user

    The --upgrade option tells pip to upgrade any requirements that are already installed. The --user option tells pip to install the program to a subdirectory of your user directory to avoid modifying libraries that your operating system uses.

    Troubleshooting issues

    If you encounter issues when you try to install the EB CLI with pip, you can install the EB CLI in a virtual environment to isolate the tool and its dependencies, or use a different version of Python than you normally do.

  2. Add the path to the executable file to your PATH variable:

    • On Linux and macOS:

      Linux – ~/.local/bin

      macOS – ~/Library/Python/3.12/bin

      To modify your PATH variable (Linux, Unix, or macOS ):

      1. Find your shell's profile script in your user folder. If you are not sure which shell you have, run echo $SHELL.

        $ ls -a ~
.  ..  .bash_logout  .bash_profile  .bashrc  Desktop  Documents  Downloads

        • Bash – .bash_profile, .profile, or .bash_login.

        • Zsh – .zshrc

        • Tcsh – .tcshrc, .cshrc or .login.

      2. Add an export command to your profile script. The following example adds the path represented by LOCAL_PATH to the current PATH variable.

        export PATH=LOCAL_PATH:$PATH

      3. Load the profile script described in the first step into your current session. The following example loads the profile script represented by PROFILE_SCRIPT. 

        $ source ~/PROFILE_SCRIPT

    • On Windows:

      Python 3.12 – %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python312\Scripts

      Python earlier versions – %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Python\Scripts

      To modify your PATH variable (Windows):

      1. Press the Windows key, and then enter environment variables.

      2. Choose Edit environment variables for your account.

      3. Choose PATH, and then choose Edit.

      4. Add paths to the Variable value field, separated by semicolons. For example: C:\item1\path;C:\item2\path

      5. Choose OK twice to apply the new settings.

      6. Close any running Command Prompt windows, and then reopen a Command Prompt window.

  3. Verify that the EB CLI installed correctly by running eb --version.

    $ eb --version
EB CLI 3.21.0 (Python 3.12)

The EB CLI is updated regularly to add functionality that supports the latest Elastic Beanstalk features. To update to the latest version of the EB CLI, run the installation command again.

$ pip install awsebcli --upgrade --user

If you need to uninstall the EB CLI, use pip uninstall.

$ pip uninstall awsebcli

Install the EB CLI in a virtual environment

You can avoid version requirement conflicts with other pip packages by installing the EB CLI in a virtual environment.

To install the EB CLI in a virtual environment

  1. First, install virtualenv with pip.

    $ pip install --user virtualenv

  2. Create a virtual environment.

    $ virtualenv ~/eb-ve

    To use a Python executable other than the default, use the -p option. 

    $ virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3.12 ~/eb-ve

  3. Activate the virtual environment.

    Linux, Unix, or macOS

    $ source ~/eb-ve/bin/activate

    Windows

    $ %USERPROFILE%\eb-ve\Scripts\activate

  4. Install the EB CLI.

    (eb-ve)$ pip install awsebcli --upgrade

  5. Verify that the EB CLI is installed correctly.

    $ eb --version
EB CLI 3.23.0 (Python 3.12)

You can use the deactivate command to exit the virtual environment. Whenever you start a new session, run the activation command again.

To upgrade to the latest version, run the installation command again.

(eb-ve)$ pip install awsebcli --upgrade

Install the EB CLI with homebrew

The latest version of the EB CLI is typically available from Homebrew a couple of days after it appears in pip.

We recommend the installer script

We recommend using the Install EB CLI to set up the EB CLI and prevent dependency conflicts.

To install the EB CLI with Homebrew

  1. Ensure you have the latest version of Homebrew.

    $ brew update

  2. Run brew install awsebcli.

    $ brew install awsebcli

  3. Verify that the EB CLI is installed correctly.

    $ eb --version
EB CLI 3.21.0 (Python 3.12)