How to backup AWS Security Groups settings

If, like me, you have to manage several Security Groups on your AWS account, you can make use of the describe-security-groups AWS CLI command for download them as a .json file for backup.

TL;DR

You can jump to the official AWS documentation for the describe-security-groups AWS CLI command on this link: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/ec2/describe-security-groups.html

Prerequisites

You will need to have the AWS CLI command line tool installed and configured on your system.

You can find the necessary information on this two links:

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-install.html
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-configure.html

How to use

1. Open a terminal window on a local folder and run this command:
   

   aws ec2 describe-security-groups --group-ids sg-123abcd4 

   You will need the ID of the Security Group you want the backup (in this example 'sg-123abcd4').

2. Done! You can now backup the newly created .json file with GIT or in any other way you want.

About the .json file

As a quick reference here is how the .json file looks:

{ "SecurityGroups": [ { "IpPermissionsEgress": [], "Description": "My security group", "IpPermissions": [ { "PrefixListIds": [], "FromPort": 22, "IpRanges": [ { "CidrIp": "203.0.113.0/24" } ], "ToPort": 22, "IpProtocol": "tcp", "UserIdGroupPairs": [] } ], "GroupName": "MySecurityGroup", "OwnerId": "123456789012", "GroupId": "sg-903004f8", } ] }