1: Create IAM role with access to S3 bucket

2: Assign IAM role to EC2 instance

No need to store credentials in config files

No need for rotation of keys

What happens in the background?

Instance Profile: A Container (A Box) for an IAM role

Used to pass role information to an EC2 instance

Creation:

AWS Management Console:

An instance profile is automatically created when you create a role for EC2 instance

From CLI or API

Explicitly manage Instance Profiles - CreateInstanceProfile etc

(REMEMBER) Instance profile is a simple container