Identity and Access Management (IAM)#

At some stage in building a project on AWS, you’ll need to give other people (or perhaps automated systems) access to your cloud resources as well. IAM is how AWS controls access to resources: who can log in, and what they can do once they’re in.

IAM diagram

  • 003 - create-iam-user = Each user gets a username/password or API keys to access AWS. Users are long-lived identities: they stick around until you delete them. Once you create a user and give them credentials, those credentials will work until they expire or you revoke them.
  • 004 - inline-policies-iam-user = Policies allow or deny actions on specific resources.
  • 005 - iam-groups = While inline policies are attached directly to a single user, the preferred way to manage permissions in AWS is to create groups and give them the policies (sometimes called customer-managed policies).
  • 006 - iam-roles = IAM has roles. A role is a temporary identity that can be used or assumed by trusted parties.

IAM roles diagram

Backward rds-general-knowledge create-iam-user-and-group Forward