Identity-based policy examples for Amazon CloudFront - Amazon CloudFront
Policy best practicesUsing the consoleAllow users to view their own permissionsPermissions to access CloudFront programmaticallyPermissions required to use the CloudFront consoleAmazon managed (predefined) policies for CloudFrontCustomer managed policy examples
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Identity-based policy examples for Amazon CloudFront

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify CloudFront resources. They also can't perform tasks by using the Amazon Web Services Management Console, Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI), or Amazon API. To grant users permission to perform actions on the resources that they need, an IAM administrator can create IAM policies. The administrator can then add the IAM policies to roles, and users can assume the roles.

To learn how to create an IAM identity-based policy by using these example JSON policy documents, see Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.

For details about actions and resource types defined by CloudFront, including the format of the ARNs for each of the resource types, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon CloudFront in the Service Authorization Reference.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete CloudFront resources in your account. These actions can incur costs for your Amazon Web Services account. When you create or edit identity-based policies, follow these guidelines and recommendations:

  • Get started with Amazon managed policies and move toward least-privilege permissions – To get started granting permissions to your users and workloads, use the Amazon managed policies that grant permissions for many common use cases. They are available in your Amazon Web Services account. We recommend that you reduce permissions further by defining Amazon customer managed policies that are specific to your use cases. For more information, see Amazon managed policies or Amazon managed policies for job functions in the IAM User Guide.

  • Apply least-privilege permissions – When you set permissions with IAM policies, grant only the permissions required to perform a task. You do this by defining the actions that can be taken on specific resources under specific conditions, also known as least-privilege permissions. For more information about using IAM to apply permissions, see Policies and permissions in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

  • Use conditions in IAM policies to further restrict access – You can add a condition to your policies to limit access to actions and resources. For example, you can write a policy condition to specify that all requests must be sent using SSL. You can also use conditions to grant access to service actions if they are used through a specific Amazon Web Service, such as Amazon CloudFormation. For more information, see IAM JSON policy elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.

  • Use IAM Access Analyzer to validate your IAM policies to ensure secure and functional permissions – IAM Access Analyzer validates new and existing policies so that the policies adhere to the IAM policy language (JSON) and IAM best practices. IAM Access Analyzer provides more than 100 policy checks and actionable recommendations to help you author secure and functional policies. For more information, see IAM Access Analyzer policy validation in the IAM User Guide.

  • Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) – If you have a scenario that requires IAM users or a root user in your Amazon Web Services account, turn on MFA for additional security. To require MFA when API operations are called, add MFA conditions to your policies. For more information, see Configuring MFA-protected API access in the IAM User Guide.

For more information about best practices in IAM, see Security best practices in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Using the CloudFront console

To access the Amazon CloudFront console, you must have a minimum set of permissions. These permissions must allow you to list and view details about the CloudFront resources in your Amazon Web Services account. If you create an identity-based policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for entities (users or roles) with that policy.

You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the Amazon CLI or the Amazon API. Instead, allow access to only the actions that match the API operation that they're trying to perform.

To ensure that users and roles can still use the CloudFront console, also attach the CloudFront ConsoleAccess or ReadOnly Amazon managed policy to the entities. For more information, see Adding permissions to a user in the IAM User Guide.

Allow users to view their own permissions

This example shows how you might create a policy that allows IAM users to view the inline and managed policies that are attached to their user identity. This policy includes permissions to complete this action on the console or programmatically using the Amazon CLI or Amazon API.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ViewOwnUserInfo",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetUserPolicy",
                "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
                "iam:ListAttachedUserPolicies",
                "iam:ListUserPolicies",
                "iam:GetUser"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws-cn:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "NavigateInConsole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetGroupPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:ListAttachedGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
                "iam:ListPolicies",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Permissions to access CloudFront programmatically

The following shows a permissions policy. The Sid, or statement ID, is optional.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Sid": "AllowAllCloudFrontPermissions",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": ["cloudfront:*"],
         "Resource": "*"
      }
   ]
}

The policy grants permissions to perform all CloudFront operations, which is sufficient to access CloudFront programmatically. If you're using the console to access CloudFront, see Permissions required to use the CloudFront console.

For a list of actions and the ARN that you specify to grant or deny permission to use each action, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon CloudFront in the Service Authorization Reference.

Permissions required to use the CloudFront console

To grant full access to the CloudFront console, you grant the permissions in the following permissions policy: 

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "acm:ListCertificates", 
            "cloudfront:*", 
            "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
            "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
            "cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics",
            "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
            "iam:ListServerCertificates",
            "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic",
            "sns:ListTopics",
            "waf:GetWebACL",
            "waf:ListWebACLs"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
            "s3:PutBucketPolicy"
         ],
         "Resource":"arn:aws:s3:::*"
      }
   ]
}

Here's why the permissions are required:

acm:ListCertificates

When you're creating and updating distributions by using the CloudFront console and you want to configure CloudFront to require HTTPS between the viewer and CloudFront or between CloudFront and the origin, lets you view a list of ACM certificates.

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

cloudfront:*

Lets you perform all CloudFront actions.

cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms and cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm

Let you create and view CloudWatch alarms in the CloudFront console. See also sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic and sns:ListTopics.

These permissions aren't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics

Lets CloudFront render CloudWatch metrics in the CloudFront console.

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers

When creating and updating distributions, lets you view a list of Elastic Load Balancing load balancers in the list of available origins.

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

iam:ListServerCertificates

When you're creating and updating distributions by using the CloudFront console and you want to configure CloudFront to require HTTPS between the viewer and CloudFront or between CloudFront and the origin, lets you view a list of certificates in the IAM certificate store.

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

s3:ListAllMyBuckets

When you're creating and updating distributions, lets you perform the following operations:

  • View a list of S3 buckets in the list of available origins

  • View a list of S3 buckets that you can save access logs in

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

S3:PutBucketPolicy

When you're creating or updating distributions that restrict access to S3 buckets, lets a user update the bucket policy to grant access to the CloudFront origin access identity. For more information, see Using an origin access identity (legacy, not recommended).

This permission isn't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic and sns:ListTopics

When you create CloudWatch alarms in the CloudFront console, lets you choose an SNS topic for notifications.

These permissions aren't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

waf:GetWebACL and waf:ListWebACLs

Lets you view a list of Amazon WAF web ACLs in the CloudFront console.

These permissions aren't required if you aren't using the CloudFront console.

Amazon managed (predefined) policies for CloudFront

Amazon addresses many common use cases by providing standalone IAM policies that are created and administered by Amazon. These Amazon managed policies grant necessary permissions for common use cases so that you can avoid having to investigate what permissions are needed. For more information, see Amazon Managed Policies in the IAM User Guide. For CloudFront, IAM provides two managed policies:

Customer managed policy examples

You can create your own custom IAM policies to allow permissions for CloudFront API actions. You can attach these custom policies to the IAM users or groups that require the specified permissions. These policies work when you are using the CloudFront API, the Amazon SDKs, or the Amazon CLI. The following examples show permissions for a few common use cases. For the policy that grants a user full access to CloudFront, see Permissions required to use the CloudFront console.

Example 1: Allow read access to all distributions

The following permissions policy grants the user permissions to view all distributions in the CloudFront console:

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "acm:ListCertificates", 
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:ListCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentities",
            "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
            "iam:ListServerCertificates",
            "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic",
            "sns:ListTopics",
            "waf:GetWebACL",
            "waf:ListWebACLs"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"
         ],
         "Resource":"arn:aws:s3:::*"
      }
   ]
}

Example 2: Allow creating, updating, and deleting distributions

The following permissions policy allows users to create, update, and delete distributions by using the CloudFront console:

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "acm:ListCertificates", 
            "cloudfront:CreateDistribution",
            "cloudfront:DeleteDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:UpdateDistribution",
            "cloudfront:ListCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentities",
            "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
            "iam:ListServerCertificates",
            "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic",
            "sns:ListTopics",
            "waf:GetWebACL",
            "waf:ListWebACLs"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
            "s3:PutBucketPolicy"
         ],
         "Resource":"arn:aws:s3:::*"
      }
   ]
}

The cloudfront:ListCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentities permission allows users to automatically grant to an existing origin access identity the permission to access objects in an Amazon S3 bucket. If you also want users to be able to create origin access identities, you also need to allow the cloudfront:CreateCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentity permission.

Example 3: Allow creating and listing invalidations

The following permissions policy allows users to create and list invalidations. It includes read access to CloudFront distributions because you create and view invalidations by first displaying settings for a distribution:

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "acm:ListCertificates", 
            "cloudfront:GetDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetStreamingDistribution",
            "cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig",
            "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "cloudfront:ListCloudFrontOriginAccessIdentities",
            "cloudfront:CreateInvalidation",
            "cloudfront:GetInvalidation",
            "cloudfront:ListInvalidations",
            "elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers",
            "iam:ListServerCertificates",
            "sns:ListSubscriptionsByTopic",
            "sns:ListTopics",
            "waf:GetWebACL",
            "waf:ListWebACLs"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "s3:ListAllMyBuckets"
         ],
         "Resource":"arn:aws:s3:::*"
      }
   ]
}

Example 4: Allow creating a distribution

The following permission policy grants the user permission to create and list distributions in the CloudFront console. For the CreateDistribution action, specify the wildcard (*) character for the Resource instead of a wildcard for the distribution ARN (arn:aws:cloudfront::123456789012:distribution/*). For more information about the Resource element, see IAM JSON policy elements: Resource in the IAM User Guide.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "cloudfront:CreateDistribution",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor1",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "cloudfront:ListDistributions",
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}