Using service-linked roles for Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS uses Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to Amazon RDS. Service-linked roles are predefined by Amazon RDS and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other Amazon services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes using Amazon RDS easier because you don't have to manually add the necessary permissions. Amazon RDS defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only Amazon RDS can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy cannot be attached to any other IAM entity.

You can delete the roles only after first deleting their related resources. This protects your Amazon RDS resources because you can't inadvertently remove permission to access the resources.

For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see Amazon services that work with IAM and look for the services that have Yes in the Service-Linked Role column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForRDS to allow Amazon RDS to call Amazon services on behalf of your DB instances.

The AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

This service-linked role has a permissions policy attached to it called AmazonRDSServiceRolePolicy that grants it permissions to operate in your account. The role permissions policy allows Amazon RDS to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

For more information about this policy, including the JSON policy document, see AmazonRDSServiceRolePolicy in the Amazon Managed Policy Reference Guide.

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/rds.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForRDS",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}
    

Creating a service-linked role for Amazon RDS

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you create a DB instance, Amazon RDS creates the service-linked role for you.

If you delete this service-linked role, and then need to create it again, you can use the same process to recreate the role in your account. When you create a DB instance, Amazon RDS creates the service-linked role for you again.

Editing a service-linked role for Amazon RDS

Amazon RDS does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role. After you create a service-linked role, you cannot change the name of the role because various entities might reference the role. However, you can edit the description of the role using IAM. For more information, see Editing a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Deleting a service-linked role for Amazon RDS

If you no longer need to use a feature or service that requires a service-linked role, we recommend that you delete that role. That way you don't have an unused entity that is not actively monitored or maintained. However, you must delete all of your DB instances before you can delete the service-linked role.

Cleaning up a service-linked role

Before you can use IAM to delete a service-linked role, you must first confirm that the role has no active sessions and remove any resources used by the role.

If you want to remove the AWSServiceRoleForRDS role, you must first delete all of your DB instances .

Deleting all of your instances

Use one of these procedures to delete each of your instances.

To delete an instance (CLI)

See delete-db-instance in the Amazon CLI Command Reference.

To delete an instance (API)

See DeleteDBInstance in the Amazon RDS API Reference.

You can use the IAM console, the IAM CLI, or the IAM API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Service-linked role permissions for Amazon RDS Custom

Amazon RDS Custom uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForRDSCustom to allow RDS Custom to call Amazon services on behalf of your DB instances and DB clusters.

The AWSServiceRoleForRDSCustom service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

This service-linked role has a permissions policy attached to it called AmazonRDSCustomServiceRolePolicy that grants it permissions to operate in your account. The role permissions policy allows RDS Custom to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

For more information about this policy, including the JSON policy document, see AmazonRDSCustomServiceRolePolicy in the Amazon Managed Policy Reference Guide.

Creating, editing, or deleting the service-linked role for RDS Custom works the same as for Amazon RDS. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions for Amazon RDS.

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/custom.rds.amazonaws.com/AmazonRDSCustomServiceRolePolicy",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"custom.rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}