AWS IAM Explained: Users, Groups, and Roles
What is IAM Users and Groups? First, let's understand what IAM is in AWS. IAM stands for Identity and Access Management , and it is a service in AWS that lets us control who can access what kind of resources in our AWS account. Now that we know what IAM is, let's talk about Users and Groups. An IAM User is an identity you create for a person or application that needs to interact with your AWS…
AWS IAM, short for Identity and Access Management, is a service that enables control over who can access which resources within an AWS account. This is achieved by creating IAM users and groups, as well as IAM roles.
An IAM user is an identity assigned to a person or application that requires interaction with the AWS account. Each user is provided with unique credentials, ensuring accountability for their actions.
An IAM group, on the other hand, is a collection of users. Instead of assigning individual permissions to each user, permissions can be assigned to the group. Consequently, all users within the group inherit these permissions. For instance, if multiple developers require identical access to an S3 bucket, creating a "Developers" group and attaching the necessary policy once, then adding all developers to this group, simplifies permission management.
IAM is essential as it prevents unauthorized access to an AWS account. Without IAM, any individual with access to the account could have unrestricted control over it. To enhance security, unique IAM users can be created for specific purposes, each with permissions tailored to their tasks.
Creating an IAM user involves logging into the root account, navigating to the IAM dashboard, and clicking "Create User." During this process, information regarding the new user is entered, and permission settings are determined. Options include attaching the user to a group, copying permissions from another user, or setting an inline policy directly to the user.
An IAM role is similar to an IAM user, but it doesn't have permanent credentials. Instead, a role is temporarily assumed by the entity requiring it, and AWS provides short-term credentials that automatically expire. This approach is particularly beneficial when a service like EC2 or Lambda needs to access other AWS resources. For example, an EC2 instance running an application needing access to an S3 bucket can be assigned an IAM role instead of using hard-coded access keys.
This method eliminates the need for long-term credentials management, as the temporary credentials automatically expire with the instance.
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