Editing IAM policies - Amazon Identity and Access Management
View policy accessEditing customer managed policies (console)Editing inline policies (console)Editing customer managed policies (Amazon CLI)Editing customer managed policies (Amazon API)
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Editing IAM policies

A policy is an entity that, when attached to an identity or resource, defines their permissions. Policies are stored in Amazon as JSON documents and are attached to principals as identity-based policies in IAM. You can attach an identity-based policy to a principal (or identity), such as an IAM user group, user, or role. Identity-based policies include Amazon managed policies, customer managed policies, and inline policies. You can edit customer managed policies and inline policies in IAM. Amazon managed policies cannot be edited. The number and size of IAM resources in an Amazon account are limited. For more information, see IAM and Amazon STS quotas, name requirements, and character limits.

View policy access

Before you change the permissions for a policy, you should review its recent service-level activity. This is important because you don't want to remove access from a principal (person or application) who is using it. For more information about viewing last accessed information, see Refining permissions in Amazon using last accessed information.

Editing customer managed policies (console)

You can edit customer managed policies to change the permissions that are defined in the policy. A customer managed policy can have up to five versions. This is important because if you make changes to a managed policy beyond five versions, the Amazon Web Services Management Console prompts you to decide which version to delete. You can also change the default version or delete a version of a policy before you edit it to avoid being prompted. To learn more about versions, see Versioning IAM policies.

To edit a customer managed policy (console)

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/iam/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies.

  3. In the list of policies, choose the policy name of the policy to edit. You can use the search box to filter the list of policies.

  4. Choose the Permissions tab, and then choose Edit policy.

  5. Do one of the following:

    • Choose the Visual editor tab to change your policy without understanding JSON syntax. You can make changes to the service, actions, resources, or optional conditions for each permission block in your policy. You can also import a policy to add additional permissions to the bottom of your policy. When you are finished making changes, choose Review policy to continue.

    • Choose the JSON tab to modify your policy by typing or pasting text in the JSON text box. You can also import a policy to add additional permissions to the bottom of your policy. Resolve any security warnings, errors, or general warnings generated during policy validation, and then choose Review policy.

      Note

      You can switch between the Visual editor and JSON tabs any time. However, if you make changes or choose Review policy in the Visual editor tab, IAM might restructure your policy to optimize it for the visual editor. For more information, see Policy restructuring.

  6. On the Review page, review the policy Summary and then choose Save changes to save your work.

  7. If the managed policy already has the maximum of five versions, choosing Save displays a dialog box. To save your new version, you must remove at least one earlier version. You cannot delete the default version. Choose from the following options:

    • Remove oldest non-default policy version (version v# - created # days ago) – Use this option to see which version will be deleted and when it was created. You can view the JSON policy document for all nondefault versions by choosing the second option, Select versions to remove.

    • Select versions to remove – Use this option to view the JSON policy document and choose one or more versions to delete.

    After choosing the versions to remove, choose Delete version and save to save your new policy version.

To set the default version of a customer managed policy (console)

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/iam/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies.

  3. In the list of policies, choose the policy name of the policy to set the default version of. You can use the search box to filter the list of policies.

  4. Choose the Policy versions tab. Select the check box next to the version that you want to set as the default version, and then choose Set as default.

To delete a version of a customer managed policy (console)

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/iam/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Policies.

  3. Choose the name of the customer managed policy that has a version you want to delete. You can use the search box to filter the list of policies.

  4. Choose the Policy versions tab. Select the check box next to the version that you want to delete. Then choose Delete.

  5. Confirm that you want to delete the version, and then choose Delete.

Editing inline policies (console)

You can edit an inline policy from the Amazon Web Services Management Console.

To edit an inline policy for a user, user group, or role (console)

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Users, User groups, or Roles.

  2. Choose the name of the user, user group, or role with the policy that you want to modify. Then choose the Permissions tab and expand the policy.

  3. To edit an inline policy, choose Edit Policy.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • Choose the Visual editor tab to change your policy without understanding JSON syntax. You can make changes to the service, actions, resources, or optional conditions for each permission block in your policy. You can also import a policy to add additional permissions to the bottom of your policy. When you are finished making changes, choose Review policy to continue.

    • Choose the JSON tab to modify your policy by typing or pasting text in the JSON text box. You can also import a policy to add additional permissions to the bottom of your policy. Resolve any security warnings, errors, or general warnings generated during policy validation, and then choose Review policy. To save your changes without affecting the currently attached entities, clear the check box for Save as default version.

    Note

    You can switch between the Visual editor and JSON tabs any time. However, if you make changes or choose Review policy in the Visual editor tab, IAM might restructure your policy to optimize it for the visual editor. For more information, see Policy restructuring.

  5. On the Review page, review the policy Summary and then choose Save changes to save your work.

Editing customer managed policies (Amazon CLI)

You can edit a customer managed policy from the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI).

Note

A managed policy can have up to five versions. If you need to make changes to a customer managed policy beyond five versions, you must first delete one or more existing versions.

To edit a customer managed policy (Amazon CLI)

  1. (Optional) To view information about a policy, run the following commands:

  2. (Optional) To find out about the relationships between the policies and identities, run the following commands:

  3. To edit a customer managed policy, run the following command:

  4. (Optional) To validate a customer managed policy, run the following IAM Access Analyzer command:

To set the default version of a customer managed policy (Amazon CLI)

  1. (Optional) To list managed policies, run the following command:

  2. To set the default version of a customer managed policy, run the following command:

To delete a version of a customer managed policy (Amazon CLI)

  1. (Optional) To list managed policies, run the following command:

  2. To delete a customer managed policy, run the following command:

Editing customer managed policies (Amazon API)

You can edit a customer managed policy using the Amazon API.

Note

A managed policy can have up to five versions. If you need to make changes to a customer managed policy beyond five versions, you must first delete one or more existing versions.

To edit a customer managed policy (Amazon API)

  1. (Optional) To view information about a policy, call the following operations:

    • To list managed policies: ListPolicies

    • To retrieve detailed information about a managed policy: GetPolicy

  2. (Optional) To find out about the relationships between the policies and identities, call the following operations:

  3. To edit a customer managed policy, call the following operation:

  4. (Optional) To validate a customer managed policy, call the following IAM Access Analyzer operation:

To set the default version of a customer managed policy (Amazon API)

  1. (Optional) To list managed policies, call the following operation:

  2. To set the default version of a customer managed policy, call the following operation:

To delete a version of a customer managed policy (Amazon API)

  1. (Optional) To list managed policies, call the following operation:

  2. To delete a customer managed policy, call the following operation: