To create an AWS Access Key, you must first be logged in to your AWS account. From the top right area of any AWS account page you will have a drop down menu for your IAM username or root account name (which ever you are logged into), and clicking that will drop down a menu including an option for “My Security Credentials” (click that.)
On the Security Credentials page you will have several options including “Access keys (access key ID and secret access key)” (click here to create your AWS Access Key and Secret Key.)
Root Accounts vs. IAM User Accounts
Amazon AWS accounts come in two flavors, the root account which is of course the main login with access to all of Amazon’s services, and there are IAM user accounts which can be created with limited permissions. Amazon (and d7xTech, Inc.) recommend using an IAM user accounts with limited permissions where possible, and this includes creating AWS Access Keys.
Learn to create an IAM user here. When using an IAM user account, you want to assign the AmazonEC2FullAccess permissions policy to that user to ensure that all features of EC2Tool work properly.