Allows to manage users, groups, policies, roles ...
IAM offers the following feature
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Centralised controls of AWS account
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Shared Access
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Granular Permissions
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Identity Federation (AD, GSuite, ...)
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Multifactor Authentication
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Provide temporary access for users/devices and services where nessary
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Allows to set up password rotation policy
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Integrates with many different AWS services
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Supports PCI DSS Compliance
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IAM is universal, any activity is on Global region, not any specific region.
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The "root account" is simply the account created when first setup AWS account, it has complete Admin access
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New Users have NO permissions when first created
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New Users are assigned Access Key ID & Secret Access Keys when first created
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These are not the same as password. Cannot user Access Key ID & Secret Access Key to login to console, we can use this to access AWS via the APIs and Command Line, however (programmatic access)
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View these once. If lose them we have to regenerate
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Always setup Multifactor Authentication on root account.
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Can create and customise password rotation policies
Create group and select the policies to be attached to the group.
Policy: json defined permissions
IAM roles are a secure way to grant permissions to entities that you trust.