What is @aws-cdk/aws-iam?
@aws-cdk/aws-iam is an AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) library that allows you to define AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) resources in your CDK applications. This package provides constructs for creating and managing IAM roles, users, policies, and groups, enabling you to manage permissions and access control in your AWS environment programmatically.
What are @aws-cdk/aws-iam's main functionalities?
Create IAM Role
This code sample demonstrates how to create an IAM role that can be assumed by EC2 instances and has read-only access to Amazon S3.
const iam = require('@aws-cdk/aws-iam');
const cdk = require('@aws-cdk/core');
class MyStack extends cdk.Stack {
constructor(scope, id, props) {
super(scope, id, props);
new iam.Role(this, 'MyRole', {
assumedBy: new iam.ServicePrincipal('ec2.amazonaws.com'),
managedPolicies: [
iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName('AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess')
]
});
}
}
const app = new cdk.App();
new MyStack(app, 'MyStack');
Create IAM User
This code sample demonstrates how to create an IAM user with administrator access.
const iam = require('@aws-cdk/aws-iam');
const cdk = require('@aws-cdk/core');
class MyStack extends cdk.Stack {
constructor(scope, id, props) {
super(scope, id, props);
new iam.User(this, 'MyUser', {
userName: 'my-user',
managedPolicies: [
iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName('AdministratorAccess')
]
});
}
}
const app = new cdk.App();
new MyStack(app, 'MyStack');
Attach Inline Policy to Role
This code sample demonstrates how to create an IAM role and attach an inline policy that allows listing objects in a specific S3 bucket.
const iam = require('@aws-cdk/aws-iam');
const cdk = require('@aws-cdk/core');
class MyStack extends cdk.Stack {
constructor(scope, id, props) {
super(scope, id, props);
const role = new iam.Role(this, 'MyRole', {
assumedBy: new iam.ServicePrincipal('lambda.amazonaws.com')
});
role.addToPolicy(new iam.PolicyStatement({
actions: ['s3:ListBucket'],
resources: ['arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket']
}));
}
}
const app = new cdk.App();
new MyStack(app, 'MyStack');
Other packages similar to @aws-cdk/aws-iam
aws-sdk
The aws-sdk package is the official AWS SDK for JavaScript, which allows you to interact with AWS services, including IAM, using JavaScript. Unlike @aws-cdk/aws-iam, which is used for defining and deploying AWS infrastructure, aws-sdk is used for making API calls to AWS services.
serverless
The serverless framework is a toolkit for deploying and operating serverless architectures, including AWS Lambda functions and associated IAM roles and policies. It provides a higher-level abstraction compared to @aws-cdk/aws-iam and is focused on serverless applications.
terraform
Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool that provides a consistent CLI workflow to manage hundreds of cloud services, including AWS IAM. It is similar to @aws-cdk/aws-iam in that it allows you to define and manage AWS infrastructure, but it is not limited to AWS and supports multiple cloud providers.
AWS Identity and Access Management Construct Library
Define a role and add permissions to it. This will automatically create and
attach an IAM policy to the role:
attaching permissions to role
Define a policy and attach it to groups, users and roles. Note that it is possible to attach
the policy either by calling xxx.attachInlinePolicy(policy)
or policy.attachToXxx(xxx)
.
attaching policies to user and group
Managed policies can be attached using xxx.addManagedPolicy(ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName(policyName))
:
attaching managed policies
Granting permissions to resources
Many of the AWS CDK resources have grant*
methods that allow you to grant other resources access to that resource. As an example, the following code gives a Lambda function write permissions (Put, Update, Delete) to a DynamoDB table.
const fn = new lambda.Function(...);
const table = new dynamodb.Table(...);
table.grantWriteData(fn);
The more generic grant
method allows you to give specific permissions to a resource:
const fn = new lambda.Function(...);
const table = new dynamodb.Table(...);
table.grant(fn, 'dynamodb:PutItem');
The grant*
methods accept an IGrantable
object. This interface is implemented by IAM principlal resources (groups, users and roles) and resources that assume a role such as a Lambda function, EC2 instance or a Codebuild project.
You can find which grant*
methods exist for a resource in the AWS CDK API Reference.
Configuring an ExternalId
If you need to create roles that will be assumed by 3rd parties, it is generally a good idea to require an ExternalId
to assume them. Configuring
an ExternalId
works like this:
supplying an external ID
Principals vs Identities
When we say Principal, we mean an entity you grant permissions to. This
entity can be an AWS Service, a Role, or something more abstract such as "all
users in this account" or even "all users in this organization". An
Identity is an IAM representing a single IAM entity that can have
a policy attached, one of Role
, User
, or Group
.
IAM Principals
When defining policy statements as part of an AssumeRole policy or as part of a
resource policy, statements would usually refer to a specific IAM principal
under Principal
.
IAM principals are modeled as classes that derive from the iam.PolicyPrincipal
abstract class. Principal objects include principal type (string) and value
(array of string), optional set of conditions and the action that this principal
requires when it is used in an assume role policy document.
To add a principal to a policy statement you can either use the abstract
statement.addPrincipal
, one of the concrete addXxxPrincipal
methods:
addAwsPrincipal
, addArnPrincipal
or new ArnPrincipal(arn)
for { "AWS": arn }
addAwsAccountPrincipal
or new AccountPrincipal(accountId)
for { "AWS": account-arn }
addServicePrincipal
or new ServicePrincipal(service)
for { "Service": service }
addAccountRootPrincipal
or new AccountRootPrincipal()
for { "AWS": { "Ref: "AWS::AccountId" } }
addCanonicalUserPrincipal
or new CanonicalUserPrincipal(id)
for { "CanonicalUser": id }
addFederatedPrincipal
or new FederatedPrincipal(federated, conditions, assumeAction)
for
{ "Federated": arn }
and a set of optional conditions and the assume role action to use.addAnyPrincipal
or new AnyPrincipal
for { "AWS": "*" }
If multiple principals are added to the policy statement, they will be merged together:
const statement = new PolicyStatement();
statement.addServicePrincipal('cloudwatch.amazonaws.com');
statement.addServicePrincipal('ec2.amazonaws.com');
statement.addArnPrincipal('arn:aws:boom:boom');
Will result in:
{
"Principal": {
"Service": [ "cloudwatch.amazonaws.com", "ec2.amazonaws.com" ],
"AWS": "arn:aws:boom:boom"
}
}
The CompositePrincipal
class can also be used to define complex principals, for example:
const role = new iam.Role(this, 'MyRole', {
assumedBy: new iam.CompositePrincipal(
new iam.ServicePrincipal('ec2.amazonaws.com'),
new iam.AccountPrincipal('1818188181818187272')
)
});
Features
- Policy name uniqueness is enforced. If two policies by the same name are attached to the same
principal, the attachment will fail.
- Policy names are not required - the CDK logical ID will be used and ensured to be unique.