SPL-66 - version 3.1.4

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Lab Overview

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that enables Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers to manage users and user permissions in AWS. With IAM, you can centrally manage users, security credentials such as access keys, and permissions that control which AWS resources users can access.

Topics covered

This lab will demonstrate:

• Exploring pre-created IAM Users and Groups
• Inspecting IAM policies as applied to the pre-created groups
• Following a real-world scenario, adding users to groups with specific capabilities enabled
• Locating and using the IAM sign-in URL
• Experimenting with the effects of policies on service access

Other AWS Services

During this lab, you may receive error messages when performing actions beyond the steps in this lab guide. These messages will not impact your ability to complete the lab.

AWS Identity and Access Management

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) can be used to:

• Manage IAM Users and their access: You can create Users and assign them individual security credentials (access keys, passwords, and multi-factor authentication devices). You can manage permissions to control which operations a User can perform.

• Manage IAM Roles and their permissions: An IAM Role is similar to a User, in that it is an AWS identity with permission policies that determine what the identity can and cannot do in AWS. However, instead of being uniquely associated with one person, a Role is intended to be assumable by anyone who needs it.

• Manage federated users and their permissions: You can enable identity federation to allow existing users in your enterprise to access the AWS Management Console, to call AWS APIs and to access resources, without the need to create an IAM User for each identity.

Start Lab

1. At the top of your screen, launch your lab by clicking Start Lab

This will start the process of provisioning your lab resources. An estimated amount of time to provision your lab resources will be displayed. You must wait for your resources to be provisioned before continuing.

 If you are prompted for a token, use the one distributed to you (or credits you have purchased).

2. Open your lab by clicking Open Console

This will automatically log you into the AWS Management Console.

 Please do not change the Region unless instructed.

Common login errors

Error : Federated login credentials

If you see this message:

• Close the browser tab to return to your initial lab window
• Wait a few seconds
• Click Open Console again

You should now be able to access the AWS Management Console.

Error: You must first log out

If you see the message, You must first log out before logging into a different AWS account:

• Click click here
• Close your browser tab to return to your initial Qwiklabs window
• Click Open Console again

Task 1: Explore the Users and Groups

In this task, you will explore the Users and Groups that have already been created for you in IAM.

3. In the AWS Management Console, on the Services menu, click IAM.

4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Users.

The following IAM Users have been created for you:

• user-1
• user-2
• user-3

5. Click user-1.

This will bring to a summary page for user-1. The Permissions tab will be displayed.

6. Notice that user-1 does not have any permissions.

7. Click the Groups tab.

user-1 also is not a member of any groups.

8. Click the Security credentials tab.

user-1 is assigned a Console password

9. In the navigation pane on the left, click Groups.

The following groups have already been created for you:

• EC2-Admin
• EC2-Support
• S3-Support

10. Click the EC2-Support group.

This will bring you to the summary page for the EC2-Support group.

11. Click the Permissions tab.

This group has a Managed Policy associated with it, called AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess. Managed Policies are pre-built policies (built either by AWS or by your administrators) that can be attached to IAM Users and Groups. When the policy is updated, the changes to the policy are immediately apply against all Users and Groups that are attached to the policy.

12. Under Actions, click the Show Policy link.

A policy defines what actions are allowed or denied for specific AWS resources. This policy is granting permission to List and Describe information about EC2, Elastic Load Balancing, CloudWatch and Auto Scaling. This ability to view resources, but not modify them, is ideal for assigning to a Support role.

The basic structure of the statements in an IAM Policy is:

• Effect says whether to Allow or Deny the permissions.
• Action specifies the API calls that can be made against an AWS Service (eg cloudwatch:ListMetrics).
• Resource defines the scope of entities covered by the policy rule (eg a specific Amazon S3 bucket or Amazon EC2 instance, or * which means any resource).

13. Close the Show Policy window.

14. In the navigation pane on the left, click Groups.

15. Click the S3-Support group.

The S3-Support group has the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy attached.

16. Below the Actions menu, click the Show Policy link.

This policy has permissions to Get and List resources in Amazon S3.

17. Close the Show Policy window.

18. In the navigation pane on the left, click Groups.

19. Click the EC2-Admin group.

This Group is slightly different from the other two. Instead of a Managed Policy, it has an Inline Policy, which is a policy assigned to just one User or Group. Inline Policies are typically used to apply permissions for one-off situations.

20. Under Actions, click Edit Policy to view the policy.

This policy grants permission to view (Describe) information about Amazon EC2 and also the ability to Start and Stop instances.

21. At the bottom of the screen, click Cancel to close the policy.

Business Scenario

For the remainder of this lab, you will work with these Users and Groups to enable permissions supporting the following business scenario:

Your company is growing its use of Amazon Web Services, and is using many Amazon EC2 instances and a great deal of Amazon S3 storage. You wish to give access to new staff depending upon their job function:

Task 2: Add Users to Groups

You have recently hired user-1 into a role where they will provide support for Amazon S3. You will add them to the S3-Support group so that they inherit the necessary permissions via the attached AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy.

 You can ignore any "not authorized" errors that appear during this task. They are caused by your lab account having limited permissions and will not impact your ability to complete the lab.

Add user-1 to the S3-Support Group

22. In the left navigation pane, click Groups.

23. Click the S3-Support group.

24. Click the Users tab.

25. In the Users tab, click Add Users to Group.

26. In the Add Users to Group window, configure the following:

• Select  user-1.
• At the bottom of the screen, click Add Users.

In the Users tab you will see that user-1 has been added to the group.

Add user-2 to the EC2-Support Group

You have hired user-2 into a role where they will provide support for Amazon EC2.

27. Using similar steps to the ones above, add user-2 to the EC2-Support group.

user-2 should now be part of the EC2-Support group.

Add user-3 to the EC2-Admin Group

You have hired user-3 as your Amazon EC2 administrator, who manage your EC2 instances.

28. Using similar steps to the ones above, add user-3 to the EC2-Admin group.

user-3 should now be part of the EC2-Admin group.

29. In the navigation pane on the left, click Groups.

Each Group should have a 1 in the Users column for the number of Users in each Group.

If you do not have a 1 beside each group, revisit the above instructions above to ensure that each user is assigned to a Group, as shown in the table in the Business Scenario section.

Task 3: Sign-In and Test Users

In this task, you will test the permissions of each IAM User.

30. In the navigation pane on the left, click Dashboard.

An IAM users sign-in link is displayed It will look similar to:  https://123456789012.signin.aws.amazon.com/console

This link can be used to sign-in to the AWS Account you are currently using.

31. Copy the IAM users sign-in link to a text editor.

32. Open a private window.

Mozilla Firefox

• Click the menu bars  at the top-right of the screen
• Select New Private Window

Google Chrome

• Click the ellipsis  at the top-right of the screen
• Click New incognito window

Microsoft Edge

• Click the ellipsis  at the top-right of the screen
• Click New InPrivate window

Microsoft Internet Explorer

• Click the Tools menu option
• Click InPrivate Browsing

33. Paste the IAM users sign-in link into your private window and press Enter.

You will now sign-in as user-1, who has been hired as your Amazon S3 storage support staff.

34. Sign-in with:

• IAM user name: 
• Password: Paste the value of AdministratorPassword located to the left of these instructions.

35. In the Services menu, click S3.

36. Click the name of one of your buckets and browse the contents.

Since your user is part of the S3-Support Group in IAM, they have permission to view a list of Amazon S3 buckets and their contents.

Now, test whether they have access to Amazon EC2.

37. In the Services menu, click EC2.

38. Navigate to the region that your lab was launched in by:

• Clicking the drop-down  arrow at the top of the screen, to the left of Support
• Selecting the region value that matches the value of Region to the left of these instructions

39. In the left navigation pane, click Instances.

You cannot see any instances! Instead, it says An error occurred fetching instance data: You are not authorized to perform this operation.. This is because your user has not been assigned any permissions to use Amazon EC2.

You will now sign-in as user-2, who has been hired as your Amazon EC2 support person.

40. Sign user-1 out of the AWS Management Console by configuring the following:

• At the top of the screen, click user-1
• Click Sign Out

41. Paste the IAM users sign-in link into your private window and press Enter.

This links should be in your text editor.

42. Sign-in with:

• IAM user name: 
• Password: Paste the value of AdministratorPassword located to the left of these instructions.

43. In the Services menu, click EC2.

44. Navigate to the region that your lab was launched in by:

• Clicking the drop-down  arrow at the top of the screen, to the left of Support
• Selecting the region value that matches the value of Region to the left of these instructions

45. In the navigation pane on the left, click Instances.

You are now able to see an Amazon EC2 instance because you have Read Only permissions. However, you will not be able to make any changes to Amazon EC2 resources.

Your EC2 instance should be selected  If it is not selected, select  it.

46. In the Actions menu, click Instance State > Stop.

47. In the Stop Instances window, click Yes, Stop.

You will receive an error stating You are not authorized to perform this operation. This demonstrates that the policy only allows you to information, without making changes.

48. At the Stop Instances window, click Cancel.

Next, check if user-2 can access Amazon S3.

49. In the Services, click S3.

You will receive an  Error Access Denied because user-2 does not permission to use Amazon S3.

You will now sign-in as user-3, who has been hired as your Amazon EC2 administrator.

50. Sign user-2 out of the AWS Management Console by configuring the following:

• At the top of the screen, click user-2
• Click Sign Out

51. Paste the IAM users sign-in link into your private window and press Enter.

52. Paste the sign-in link into your web browser address bar again. If it is not in your clipboard, retrieve it from the text editor where you stored it earlier.

53. Sign-in with:

• IAM user name: 
• Password: Paste the value of AdministratorPassword located to the left of these instructions.

54. In the Services menu, click EC2.

55. Navigate to the region that your lab was launched in by:

• Clicking the drop-down  arrow at the top of the screen, to the left of Support
• Selecting the region value that matches the value of Region to the left of these instructions

56. In the navigation pane on the left, click Instances.

As an EC2 Administrator, you should now have permissions to Stop the Amazon EC2 instance.

Your EC2 instance should be selected . If it is not, please select  it.

57. In the Actions menu, click Instance State > Stop.

58. In the Stop Instances window, click Yes, Stop.

The instance will enter the stopping state and will shutdown.

59. Close your private window.

End Lab

Follow these steps to close the console, end your lab, and evaluate the experience.

60. Return to the AWS Management Console.

61. On the navigation bar, click awsstudent@<AccountNumber>, and then click Sign Out.

62. Click End Lab

63. Click OK

64. (Optional):

• Select the applicable number of stars 
• Type a comment

• Click Submit

  • 1 star = Very dissatisfied
  • 2 stars = Dissatisfied
  • 3 stars = Neutral
  • 4 stars = Satisfied
  • 5 stars = Very satisfied

You may close the dialog if you don't want to provide feedback.

Conclusion

 Congratulations! You now have successfully:

• Explored pre-created IAM users and groups
• Inspected IAM policies as applied to the pre-created groups
• Followed a real-world scenario, adding users to groups with specific capabilities enabled
• Located and used the IAM sign-in URL

• Experimented with the effects of policies on service access

• For more information about AWS Training and Certification, see  http://aws.amazon.com/training/ .

• For more AWS Self-Paced Labs, see  http://amazon.qwiklabs.com .

For feedback, suggestions, or corrections, please email us at [email protected].

Additional Resources

• AWS Training and Certification
• For more information about AWS IAM

For feedback, suggestions, or corrections, please email us at: [email protected]