Solve - Unable to Parse Config File Error in AWS CLI
Borislav Hadzhiev
Wed Sep 15 2021·2 min read
Photo by Taras Zaluzhnyi
Solving Unable to Parse Config File Credentials Error #
The reason the "Unable to parse config file" error occurs is because there is an error in the AWS configuration file on that machine.
In order to solve the "Unable to parse config file" error we have to locate
the credentials file and make it conform to the format the AWS CLI expects.
On linux and macOS, the credentials file is located at
~/.aws/credentials.
On windows the file is located at C:\Users\USERNAME\.aws\credentials.
The correct syntax for the credentials file is as follows:
[default] aws_access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID aws_secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY [admin] aws_access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID aws_secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY
The snippet above sets the access key and secret access key IDs for the
default profile and for a profile named admin.
aws_access_key_id or aws_secret_access_key multiple times for the same profile.To view all of the supported settings for the credentials file check out the
docs at
Supported config file settings.
The region and output format of the AWS CLI are configured in a file named
config located in the same directory.
On linux and macOS, the config file is located at ~/.aws/config.
On windows the config file is located at C:\Users\USERNAME\.aws\config.
The correct syntax for the config file looks like:
[default] region=us-east-1 output=json [profile admin] region=us-east-1 output=json
region or output twice for the same profile in your config file, you would still get the "Unable to parse config file" error.
Further Reading #
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