IAM service roles - Amazon EBS
Default service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle ManagerCustom service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager
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IAM service roles

An Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) role is similar to a user, in that it is an Amazon identity with permissions policies that determine what the identity can and can't do in Amazon. However, instead of being uniquely associated with one person, a role is intended to be assumable by anyone who needs it. A service role is a role that an Amazon service assumes to perform actions on your behalf. As a service that performs backup operations on your behalf, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager requires that you pass it a role to assume when performing policy operations on your behalf. For more information about IAM roles, see IAM Roles in the IAM User Guide.

The role that you pass to Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager must have an IAM policy with the permissions that enable Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to perform actions associated with policy operations, such as creating snapshots and AMIs, copying snapshots and AMIs, deleting snapshots, and deregistering AMIs. Different permissions are required for each of the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager policy types. The role must also have Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager listed as a trusted entity, which enables Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to assume the role.

Default service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager uses the following default service roles:

  • AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole—default role for managing snapshots. It trusts only the dlm.amazonaws.com service to assume the role and it allows Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to perform the actions required by snapshot and cross-account snapshot copy policies on your behalf. This role uses the AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRole Amazon managed policy.

    Note

    The ARN format of the role differs depending on whether it was created using the console or the Amazon CLI. If the role was created using the console, the ARN format is arn:aws:iam::account_id:role/service-role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole. If the role was created using the Amazon CLI, the ARN format is arn:aws:iam::account_id:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole.

  • AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement—default role for managing AMIs. It trusts only the dlm.amazonaws.com service to assume the role and it allows Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager to perform the actions required by EBS-backed AMI policies on your behalf. This role uses the AWSDataLifecycleManagerServiceRoleForAMIManagement Amazon managed policy.

If you are using the Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager console, Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager automatically creates the AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole service role the first time you create a snapshot or cross-account snapshot copy policy, and it automatically creates the AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement service role the first time you create an EBS-backed AMI policy.

If you are not using the console, you can manually create the service roles using the create-default-role command. For --resource-type, specify snapshot to create AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole, or image to create AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRoleForAMIManagement.

$ aws dlm create-default-role --resource-type snapshot|image

If you delete the default service roles, and then need to create them again, you can use the same process to recreate them in your account.

Custom service roles for Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager

As an alternative to using the default service roles, you can create custom IAM roles with the required permissions and then select them when you create a lifecycle policy.

To create a custom IAM role

  1. Create roles with the following permissions.

    • Permissions required for managing snapshot lifecycle policies

      {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:CreateSnapshot",
                "ec2:CreateSnapshots",
                "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances",
                "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
                "ec2:DescribeSnapshots",
                "ec2:EnableFastSnapshotRestores",
                "ec2:DescribeFastSnapshotRestores",
                "ec2:DisableFastSnapshotRestores",
                "ec2:CopySnapshot",
                "ec2:ModifySnapshotAttribute",
                "ec2:DescribeSnapshotAttribute",
                "ec2:ModifySnapshotTier",
                "ec2:DescribeSnapshotTierStatus"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:CreateTags"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "events:PutRule",
                "events:DeleteRule",
                "events:DescribeRule",
                "events:EnableRule",
                "events:DisableRule",
                "events:ListTargetsByRule",
                "events:PutTargets",
                "events:RemoveTargets"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:events:*:*:rule/AwsDataLifecycleRule.managed-cwe.*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetCommandInvocation",
                "ssm:ListCommands",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:SendCommand",
                "ssm:DescribeDocument",
                "ssm:GetDocument"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:document/*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "aws:ResourceTag/DLMScriptsAccess": "true"
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:SendCommand",
                "ssm:DescribeDocument",
                "ssm:GetDocument"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*::document/*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:SendCommand"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:*:*:instance/*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringNotLike": {
                    "aws:ResourceTag/DLMScriptsAccess": "false"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

    • Permissions required for managing AMI lifecycle policies

      {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "ec2:CreateTags",
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*",
                "arn:aws:ec2:*::image/*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:DescribeImages",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances",
                "ec2:DescribeImageAttribute",
                "ec2:DescribeVolumes",
                "ec2:DescribeSnapshots"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::snapshot/*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:ResetImageAttribute",
                "ec2:DeregisterImage",
                "ec2:CreateImage",
                "ec2:CopyImage",
                "ec2:ModifyImageAttribute"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:EnableImageDeprecation",
                "ec2:DisableImageDeprecation"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ec2:*::image/*"
        }
    ]
}

    For more information, see Creating a Role in the IAM User Guide.

  2. Add a trust relationship to the roles.

    1. In the IAM console, choose Roles.

    2. Select the roles that you created, and then choose Trust relationships.

    3. Choose Edit Trust Relationship, add the following policy, and then choose Update Trust Policy.

      {
	"Version": "2012-10-17",
	"Statement": [{
		"Effect": "Allow",
		"Principal": {
			"Service": "dlm.amazonaws.com"
		},
		"Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
	}]
}

      We recommend that you use the aws:SourceAccount and aws:SourceArn condition keys to protect yourself against the confused deputy problem. For example, you could add the following condition block to the previous trust policy. The aws:SourceAccount is the owner of the lifecycle policy and the aws:SourceArn is the ARN of the lifecycle policy. If you don't know the lifecycle policy ID, you can replace that portion of the ARN with a wildcard (*) and then update the trust policy after you create the lifecycle policy.

      "Condition": {
    "StringEquals": {
        "aws:SourceAccount": "account_id"
    },
    "ArnLike": {
        "aws:SourceArn": "arn:partition:dlm:region:account_id:policy/policy_id"
    }
}