Serverless Developer Guide
If you are creating a new account, you will create a root account using an email address. The root
account has unrestricted access, similar to root accounts for an operating system. As a best practice, 
you should create an administrative user too.
Granting administrative access to a user
As you might guess, granting administrative access to a user is still rather far reaching. An 
account with administrative level privileges will make getting started easier. For systems 
in production, follow the principle of least-privilege — granting only the minimum access 
necessary to accomplish tasks.
• For a step-by-step guide to account types and login management, see Signing in to the AWS 
Management Console.
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the service to manage entities and resources 
authorized to use services and service resources.
Sign up for an AWS account
If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.
To sign up for an AWS account
1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.
2. Follow the online instructions.
Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a veriﬁcation code 
on the phone keypad.
When you sign up for an AWS account, an AWS account root user is created. The root user 
has access to all AWS services and resources in the account. As a security best practice, assign 
administrative access to a user, and use only the root user to perform tasks that require root 
user access.
AWS sends you a conﬁrmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can 
view your current account activity and manage your account by going to https://aws.amazon.com/
and choosing My Account.
Amazon Web Services account 10