aws cli output automatically being sent to vi
Feb 21
I am learning the AWS CLI (v2) - a software command line tool to work with code, resources and other administration purposes in AWS - and have installed it on Ubuntu 18.04. I am running zsh with oh-my-zsh installed. I am trying to get aws command output to be reported back to the terminal as a JSON string (or even as text), but the output is always redirected to vi.
My AWS account is brand new - no EC2 instances. When I run the following command:
aws ec2 describe-instances
It sends the expected output value (e.g. { "Reservations": [] }), but directly to vi instead of outputting a JSON string to the terminal requiring closing vi afterwards. This occurs regardless of output format (json, text, table) or what shell I use (bash, zsh).
I am not sure if this is a AWS CLI configuration issue/change or a shell/Linux configuration issue/change
- I've reviewed my .zshrc, .bashrc, .bash_profile and .bash_aliases files and have not seen any obvious solution here that would change or redirect output.
- I've been scouring the AWS CLI documentation, Stack Overflow and Google and I have not found a fix or a similar case.
bash
zsh
linux1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
Feb 22
It was the PAGER environment variable set to "less" (which I was confusing with vi).
This fix is to update the ~/.aws/config file and setting cli_pager to an empty value, e.g. :
[default]
region = us-west-2
output = json
cli_pager =
Thank you to Sorin who commented on my question lead me to the answer.
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Feb 22
Feb 22