# AWS / RDS environment variables disagree in docs

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/aws-rds-environment-variables-disagree-in-docs/21593>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** aws\
**Created:** [May 28, 2016, 11:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aws-rds-environment-variables-disagree-in-docs/21593 "2016-05-28T23:02:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Darren\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Darren\_S](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Darren_S)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2016, 11:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/aws-rds-environment-variables-disagree-in-docs/21593/1 "2016-05-28T23:02:48Z")

</div>

> From [http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/guide\_aws.html:](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/guide_aws.html:)

Authentication with the AWS-related modules is handled by either  
specifying your access and secret key as ENV variables or module  
arguments.

For environment variables:

export AWS\_ACCESS\_KEY\_ID='AK123'  
export AWS\_SECRET\_ACCESS\_KEY='abc123'

> From [http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/rds\_module.html:](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/rds_module.html:)

aws\_access\_key  
AWS access key. If not set then the value of the AWS\_ACCESS\_KEY  
environment variable is used.

aws\_secret\_key  
AWS secret key. If not set then the value of the AWS\_SECRET\_KEY  
environment variable is used.

Should these be in agreement on the name of the environment variables?  
Both the access\_key and secret\_key differ. It may also be useful to  
indicate in /ansible/guide\_aws.html that the EC2\_REGION variable is  
used in modules such as rds.

Also, since the underlying libraries (boto, boto3) can be configured  
using their own config file, can the AWS modules that depend on those  
libraries fall back to the libraries using settings from their own  
config files (to avoid duplication of credentials / leakage via env  
vars / etc.)?