White Belt, Part 1: Your AWS account

What you get and what it costs

New AWS accounts start with USD 100 in credits, and you can earn up to USD 100 more by completing short activities in the console. More than 30 services also have monthly free usage limits. Everything in the white belt costs cents, so the credits are your experimentation budget for the whole ladder.

Already have an account? Skip to part 2, but read the budget alarm step first.

Create the account

1. 1

   Sign up with an email you control

   Go to aws.amazon.com and choose Create an AWS account. Use an email address you will keep for years; it becomes the root user of the account. Pick an account name such as your own name plus "sandbox".

2. 2

   Choose the Free account plan

   When asked for an account plan, choose Free. You still enter a payment card, but nothing is charged on the Free plan. Choose Paid only if you want access to every service and are fine paying beyond the credits.

   Some services are not available on the Free plan, including anything that could burn through credits quickly. The white belt only uses services that are.

3. 3

   Claim your credits

   Open the Billing and Cost Management console and find the Free Tier page. The USD 100 sign-up credit is already there. The activities that earn up to USD 100 more are listed on the same page; the video above walks through them.

Lock the front door

1. 4

   Turn on MFA for the root user

   Open the IAM console, and in the Security recommendations at the top choose Add MFA for the root user. Pick an authenticator app (free) or a passkey. Save the recovery codes somewhere safe. From now on the root user is only for account-level tasks.

2. 5

   Create an admin user for daily work

   In IAM, choose Users, then Create user. Name it after yourself, allow console access, and attach the AdministratorAccess policy directly. Turn on MFA for this user too. Sign out of root and sign in as this user for everything that follows.

   AWS recommends IAM Identity Center for people and organisations. A single IAM user is simpler for one person learning, which is why the guide uses it.

3. 6

   Never create root access keys

   Access keys for the root user cannot be limited and are the most common way accounts get taken over. If you ever need keys for a tool, create them for your admin user and delete them when you are done.

Your cost ceiling

This is the one step every belt assumes. Do it before you create any resource.

1. 7

   Create a budget alarm

   Open Billing and Cost Management, choose Budgets, then Create budget. Use the Zero spend budget template, or a monthly cost budget of USD 5. Enter your email as the alert recipient. AWS emails you when actual or forecast spend crosses the line.

   Budgets are free. Free Tier usage alerts also email you at 85 percent of a free limit; keep those on as well.

2. 8

   Know how to find what is running

   Bookmark the Billing home page and the Cost Explorer page. Every belt ends with a cleanup step; the bill is how you confirm nothing was left behind.

Done

You now have an account with MFA on root, an admin user you actually use, your credits, and an alarm that tells you before anything costs money. Part 2 builds the site.