How to: Use different configurations for S3cmd

S3cmd is a free command line tool and client for uploading, retrieving and managing data in Amazon S3. S3cmd reads its configuration by default from ~/.s3cfg, which is created once you run s3cmd --configure.

If you have many configurations, we recommend to always specify the configuration you want to use. This prevents applying actions to the wrong bucket.

Examples:

s3cmd -c ~/.s3cfg-github-staging ls
s3cmd -c ~/.s3cfg-github-development ls
s3cmd -c ~/.s3cfg-facebook-production ls

Keep in mind to move every new configuration from ~/.s3cfg to ~/.s3cfg-$project-$env.

Switching via symlink

Another approach is changing your configuration via symlink. This has the advantage that you do not have to provide the config file for each command, but you have to be sure, that the correct config file is currently linked.

Example:

ls ~/.s3cfg*
~/.s3cfg-github-staging ~/.s3cfg-github-development ~/.s3cfg-facebook-production

ln -s ~/.s3cfg-github-staging ~/.s3cfg