by Apurv Awasthi, Sr. Product Manager, AWS Identity and Access Management, AWS

1. IAM Introduction
Apurv Awasthi, Senior Product Manager
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

2. What to Expect from the Session
We will look at:
• What is IAM?
• IAM Concepts – to help you get started
• Common use cases – cover the building blocks
• Demos – “Show and Tell”

3. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Enables you to control who can do what in your AWS account
• IAM uses access control concepts that you are already familiar with
User Group Permissions
(IAM Policies)
Role
AWS Services
and
Resources

4. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Control
– Centralized
– Fine-grained - APIs, resources, and AWS Management Console
• Security
– Secure (deny) by default
– Multiple users, individual security credentials and permissions

5. IAM Users
What
• Entity that represents the person or service that uses it to interact with AWS
• Consists of a name and unique set of credentials
• Console password
• Access Key
• MFA device (SMS, Virtual, or Hardware)
• Each IAM user is associated with one and only one AWS account; does not
require a separate payment method.
When
• Enable human or programmatic access to AWS resources and services
• E.g. New employee, Rob, requires access to Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3
services
• E.g. Rob has created an application that stores data in Amazon DynamoDB

6. IAM Users
Why (Benefits)
• Unique set of credentials
• Individual permissions
• Granular control
• Easy to revoke access
Do
• Create IAM user for yourself
• Create individual IAM users for
others
Don’t
• Distribute your AWS root
credentials
• Use your root account user
• Share your IAM user credentials

7. IAM Users and Permissions
• No permissions by default
• Permissions specify who has access to AWS resources, and what actions
they can perform on those resources
• Assign permissions individually to each user (or use Groups)
• Rob (UX Designer) > access to Amazon S3
• Samantha (Database Administrator) > access to select Amazon EC2, Amazon
RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, and AWS Data Pipeline APIs
• Use IAM Policies to assign permissions

8. IAM Policies
• Contain a statement (permissions) which specify a combination of :
• Who
• What actions
• Which AWS resources
• When
• Where
• How
Rob
Can GET/PUT objects in S3
Bucket = “*”
Until Dec 31, 2017
From IP range 123.456.789.012
If using MFA

9. IAM Policies
• JSON-formatted documents
Example of an Amazon S3 Read-Only Access Template
{
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": ["s3:Get*", "s3:List*"],
"Resource": "*"
}
]
}
• Attach policy to a user, group, or role
(identity-based permissions)
• Attach policy to select resources e.g. Amazon
S3 buckets (resource-based permissions)
Example of
identity-based permission
Example of
resource-based permission
Rob
Can Read,
Write, List
On Resource :
icon-designs
icon-designs
Rob: Read,
Write, List
Samantha: List
Zoe: Read,
List

10. IAM Policies
Two types of identity-based policies in IAM
• Managed policies (newer way)
• Can be attached to multiple users, groups, and roles
• AWS managed policies (created and managed by AWS)
• Customer managed policies (created and managed by you)
o Up to 5K per policy
o Up to 5 versions
• You can limit who can attach managed policies
• Inline policies (the older way)
• You create and embed directly in a single user, group, or role
• Variable policy size (2K per user, 5K per group, 10K per role)

11. Live Demo
1. Create a new IAM user called Rob
2. Assign Rob a password
3. Enable MFA for Rob
(Authy 2FA app: https://www.authy.com/app/mobile/)
4. Require password reset at next sign-in
5. Grant Rob administrative permissions over Amazon S3
by attaching an AWS managed policy
i. Replace with a less permissive AWS managed policy
ii. Replace with a customer managed policy
Demo
Time

12. Side bar
SSH Keys: you can associate an SSH key with your
IAM user and then use the SSH key to authenticate
with AWS CodeCommit (a managed source control
service)
Credential Reports: You can generate and download a
credential report that lists all IAM users in your
account and the status of their various credentials,
including passwords, access keys, and MFA devices.
For passwords and access keys, the credential report
shows how recently the password or access key has
been used
Example of retrieving Credential Report
Example of associating SSH keys to IAM user

13. Side bar
Trusted Advisor: your
customized cloud expert! It
helps you to observe best
practices for the use of AWS
by inspecting your AWS
environment with an eye
toward closing security gaps,
saving money, and improving
system performance and
reliability.
Example of identifying security gaps by using Trusted Advisor

14. IAM Groups
What
• Collection of IAM users
• Specify and manage permissions for multiple
users, centrally
• E.g. group for all UX Designers
• A group can contain many users, and a user
can belong to multiple groups
When
• Easily manage permissions for multiple users
AWS Account
IAM Group:
Administrators
Akshay
Andrea
Arvind
IAM Group:
UX Designers
Rob
Rachel
IAM Group:
DevOps
Akshay
Andrew
Lin
Zoe
Example of managing permission using groups

15. IAM Groups
Why (Benefits)
• Reduces the complexity of access
management as number of users
grow
• Easy way to reassign permissions
based on change in responsibility
• Easy way to update permissions for
multiple users
• Reduces the opportunity for a user
to accidently get excessive access
Do
• Create groups that relate to job
functions
• Attach policies to groups
• Use managed policies to logically
manage permissions
• Manage group membership to assign
permissions

16. Live Demo
1. Create a new IAM group called UXDesigners
2. Assign permissions to the IAM group
3. Create a new IAM user called Rachel
4. Add Rob and Rachel to the IAM group
Demo
Time

17. IAM Roles
What
• Another identity with permission policies that determine what the identity can
and cannot do in AWS
• Can be assumed by anyone who needs it; not uniquely associated with one
person or application
• Does not have credentials; access keys are created and provided dynamically
When
• Give cross-account access
• Give access within an account
• E.g. access for application running on Amazon EC2
• [Federation] Give access to identities defined outside AWS
• E.g. access for identities maintained in your corporate IdP

18. Use IAM roles to share access
Why (Benefits)
• No need to share security
credentials
• No need to store long-term
credentials
• Control who has access
Do
• Use roles to delegate cross-account
access
• Use roles to delegate access within an
account
• Use roles to provide access for
federated users

19. prod@example.com
Acct ID: 111122223333
ddb-role
{ "Statement": [
{ "Action":
[
"dynamodb:GetItem",
"dynamodb:BatchGetItem",
"dynamodb:DescribeTable",
"dynamodb:ListTables"
],
"Effect": "Allow",
"Resource": "*“
}]}
dev@example.com
Acct ID: 123456789012
Authenticate with
Rob’ access keys
Get temporary
security credentials
for ddb-role
Call AWS APIs using
temporary security
credentials
of ddb-role
{ "Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
"Resource":
"arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/ddb-role"
}]}
{ "Statement": [
{
"Effect":"Allow",
"Principal":{"AWS":"123456789012"},
"Action":"sts:AssumeRole"
}]}
ddb-role trusts IAM users from the AWS account
dev@example.com (123456789012)
Permissions assigned to
Rob granting him
permission to assume ddb-
role in account B
IAM user: Rob
Permissions assigned to ddb-role
STS
Use IAM roles for cross-account access

20. Use IAM roles for Amazon EC2 instances
Why (Benefits)
• Easy to manage access keys on
EC2 instances
• Automatic key rotation
• AWS SDKs fully integrated
• AWS CLI fully integrated
Do
• Use roles instead of long term
credentials
• Assign least privilege to the
application

21. 1. Use Switch Role between two accounts
2. Launch an EC2 instance with a role Demo
Time

22. Questions?

23. aws.amazon.com/activate
Everything and Anything Startups
Need to Get Started on AWS