The AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) service allows you to manage access to AWS resources securely. The AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) provides a dedicated set of commands, referred to as the “aws iam” command, for interacting with IAM programmatically.
The “aws iam” command enables you to perform various IAM-related tasks and operations through the command line. Here’s an overview of what you can do with the “aws iam” command:
- User and Group Management: You can use the “aws iam” command to create, update, and delete IAM users and groups. This includes tasks such as creating access keys, managing passwords, adding or removing users from groups, and configuring IAM policies for users and groups.
- Role Management: The “aws iam” command allows you to manage IAM roles, which are used to delegate access to AWS resources. You can create, update, and delete roles, attach and detach policies to roles, and manage the trust policies that define who can assume the roles.
- Policy Management: With the “aws iam” command, you can manage IAM policies, which define permissions for users, groups, and roles. You can create, update, and delete policies, attach and detach policies from entities, and view policy details and versions.
- Access Key Management: The “aws iam” command enables you to manage access keys for IAM users. You can create, rotate, and delete access keys, as well as list access keys associated with a specific user.
Other Operations: The “aws iam” command provides additional capabilities, such as listing and managing IAM instance profiles, managing MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) devices, and retrieving information about IAM entities and their relationships.
Here’s an overview of the aws iam command and its capabilities:
- User and Group Management: You can create, update, and delete IAM users using the aws iam command. This includes tasks such as managing user passwords, enabling or disabling users, and assigning or removing users from IAM groups. You can also retrieve information about users and list their associated access keys.
- Role Management: IAM roles are used to delegate permissions to entities within AWS. With the aws iam command, you can create, modify, and delete IAM roles. You can also manage the policies attached to roles, including adding or removing policies and managing trust policies that define who can assume the roles.
- Policy Management: The aws iam command enables you to manage IAM policies, which define permissions for users, groups, and roles. You can create, update, and delete policies using the command. You can also attach and detach policies from IAM entities and view information about policy versions.
- Access Key Management: IAM access keys are used to authenticate API requests made to AWS. With the aws iam command, you can manage access keys for IAM users. This includes creating, listing, updating, and deleting access keys associated with specific users.
- Other Operations: The aws iam command provides additional functionality, such as managing IAM instance profiles, which are used to grant AWS resource permissions to EC2 instances. You can also manage multi-factor authentication (MFA) devices associated with IAM users and retrieve information about IAM entities and their relationships.
By using the aws iam command, you can automate IAM-related tasks, integrate IAM management into your scripts and workflows, and efficiently manage access and permissions for your AWS resources.
aws iam Command Examples
1. Show aws iam help page (including all available iam commands):
# aws iam help
2. List users:
# aws iam list-users
3. List policies:
# aws iam list-policies
4. List groups:
# aws iam list-groups
5. Get users in a group:
# aws iam get-group --group-name group_name
6. Describe an IAM policy:
# aws iam get-policy --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/policy_name
7. List access keys:
# aws iam list-access-keys
8. List access keys for a specific user:
# aws iam list-access-keys --user-name user_name