End of support notice: On October 7th, 2026, Amazon will discontinue support for Amazon IoT Greengrass Version 1. After October 7th, 2026, you will no longer be able to access the Amazon IoT Greengrass V1 resources. For more information, please visit Migrate from Amazon IoT Greengrass Version 1.
How Amazon IoT Greengrass works with IAM
Before you use IAM to manage access to Amazon IoT Greengrass, you should understand the IAM features that you can use with Amazon IoT Greengrass.
IAM feature |
Supported by Greengrass? |
|---|---|
| Yes | |
| No | |
| No | |
| No | |
| Yes | |
| No | |
| Yes |
For a high-level view of how other Amazon services work with IAM, see Amazon services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.
Identity-based policies for Amazon IoT Greengrass
With IAM identity-based policies, you can specify allowed or denied actions and resources and the conditions under which actions are allowed or denied. Amazon IoT Greengrass supports specific actions, resources, and condition keys. To learn about all of the elements that you use in a policy, see IAM JSON policy elements reference in the IAM User Guide.
Actions
Administrators can use Amazon JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.
The Action element of a JSON policy describes the
actions that you can use to allow or deny access in a policy. Include actions in a policy to grant permissions to perform the associated operation.
Policy actions for Amazon IoT Greengrass use the greengrass: prefix before the action.
For example, to allow someone to use the
ListGroups API operation to list the groups in their Amazon Web Services account,
you include the greengrass:ListGroups action in their policy. Policy statements must
include either an Action or NotAction element.
Amazon IoT Greengrass defines its own set of actions that describe tasks that you can
perform with this service.
To specify multiple actions in a single statement, list them between brackets ([ ])
and separate them with commas, as follows:
"Action": [ "greengrass:action1", "greengrass:action2", "greengrass:action3" ]
You can use wildcards (*) to specify multiple actions. For example, to specify all
actions that begin with the word List, include the following
action:
"Action": "greengrass:List*"
Note
We recommend that you avoid the use of wildcards to specify all available actions for a service. As a best practice, you should grant least privilege and narrowly scope permissions in a policy. For more information, see Grant minimum possible permissions.
For the complete list of Amazon IoT Greengrass actions, see Actions Defined by Amazon IoT Greengrass in the IAM User Guide.
Resources
Administrators can use Amazon JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.
The Resource JSON policy element specifies the object or objects to which the action applies. As a best practice, specify a resource using its Amazon Resource Name (ARN). For actions that don't support resource-level permissions, use a wildcard (*) to indicate that the statement applies to all resources.
"Resource": "*"
The following table contains the Amazon IoT Greengrass resource ARNs that can be used in the Resource element of a policy statement.
For a mapping of supported resource-level permissions for Amazon IoT Greengrass actions, see Actions Defined by Amazon IoT Greengrass in the
IAM User Guide.
| Resource | ARN |
|---|---|
| Group |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/groups/${GroupId}
|
| GroupVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/groups/${GroupId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| CertificateAuthority |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/groups/${GroupId}/certificateauthorities/${CertificateAuthorityId}
|
| Deployment |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/groups/${GroupId}/deployments/${DeploymentId}
|
| BulkDeployment |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/bulk/deployments/${BulkDeploymentId}
|
| ConnectorDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/connectors/${ConnectorDefinitionId}
|
| ConnectorDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/connectors/${ConnectorDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| CoreDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/cores/${CoreDefinitionId}
|
| CoreDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/cores/${CoreDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| DeviceDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/devices/${DeviceDefinitionId}
|
| DeviceDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/devices/${DeviceDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| FunctionDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/functions/${FunctionDefinitionId}
|
| FunctionDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/functions/${FunctionDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| LoggerDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/loggers/${LoggerDefinitionId}
|
| LoggerDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/loggers/${LoggerDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| ResourceDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/resources/${ResourceDefinitionId}
|
| ResourceDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/resources/${ResourceDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| SubscriptionDefinition |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/subscriptions/${SubscriptionDefinitionId}
|
| SubscriptionDefinitionVersion |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/definition/subscriptions/${SubscriptionDefinitionId}/versions/${VersionId}
|
| ConnectivityInfo |
arn:${Partition}:greengrass:${Region}:${Account}:/greengrass/things/${ThingName}/connectivityInfo
|
The following example Resource element specifies the ARN of a group in the US West (Oregon) Region in the Amazon Web Services account 123456789012:
"Resource": "arn:aws:greengrass:us-west-2:123456789012:/greengrass/groups/a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111
Or, to specify all groups that belong to an Amazon Web Services account in a specific Amazon Web Services Region, use the wildcard in place of the group ID:
"Resource": "arn:aws:greengrass:us-west-2:123456789012:/greengrass/groups/*"
Some Amazon IoT Greengrass actions (for example, some list operations), cannot be performed on a specific resource. In those cases, you must use the wildcard alone.
"Resource": "*"
To specify multiple resource ARNs in a statement, list them between brackets ([ ])
and separate them with commas, as follows:
"Resource": [ "resource-arn1", "resource-arn2", "resource-arn3" ]
For more information about ARN formats, see Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) and Amazon service namespaces
Condition keys
Administrators can use Amazon JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.
The Condition element specifies when statements execute based on defined criteria. You can create conditional expressions that use condition
operators, such as equals or less than, to match the condition in the
policy with values in the request. To see all Amazon global
condition keys, see Amazon global condition context keys in the
IAM User Guide.
Amazon IoT Greengrass supports the following global condition keys.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
aws:CurrentTime |
Filters access by checking date/time conditions for the current date and time. |
aws:EpochTime |
Filters access by checking date/time conditions for the current date and time in epoch or Unix time. |
aws:MultiFactorAuthAge |
Filters access by checking how long ago (in seconds) the security credentials validated by multi-factor authentication (MFA) in the request were issued using MFA. |
aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent |
Filters access by checking whether multi-factor authentication (MFA) was used to validate the temporary security credentials that made the current request. |
aws:RequestTag/${TagKey} |
Filters create requests based on the allowed set of values for each of the mandatory tags. |
aws:ResourceTag/${TagKey} |
Filters actions based on the tag value associated with the resource. |
aws:SecureTransport |
Filters access by checking whether the request was sent using SSL. |
aws:TagKeys |
Filters create requests based on the presence of mandatory tags in the request. |
aws:UserAgent |
Filters access by the requester's client application. |
For more information, see Amazon global condition context keys in the IAM User Guide.
Examples
To view examples of Amazon IoT Greengrass identity-based policies, see Identity-based policy examples for Amazon IoT Greengrass.
Resource-based policies for Amazon IoT Greengrass
Amazon IoT Greengrass does not support resource-based policies.
Access control lists (ACLs)
Amazon IoT Greengrass does not support ACLs.
Authorization based on Amazon IoT Greengrass tags
Amazon IoT Greengrass does not support tags-based authorization.
IAM roles for Amazon IoT Greengrass
An IAM role is an entity within your Amazon Web Services account that has specific permissions.
Using temporary credentials with Amazon IoT Greengrass
Temporary credentials are used to sign in with federation, assume an IAM role, or to assume a cross-account role. You obtain temporary security credentials by calling Amazon STS API operations such as AssumeRole or GetFederationToken.
On the Greengrass core, temporary credentials for the group role are made available to user-defined Lambda functions and connectors. If your Lambda functions use the Amazon SDK, you don't need to add logic to obtain the credentials because the Amazon SDK does this for you.
Service-linked roles
Amazon IoT Greengrass does not support service-linked roles.
Service roles
This feature allows a service to assume a service role on your behalf. This role allows the service to access resources in other services to complete an action on your behalf. Service roles appear in your IAM account and are owned by the account. This means that an IAM administrator can change the permissions for this role. However, doing so might break the functionality of the service.
Amazon IoT Greengrass uses a service role to access some of your Amazon resources on your behalf. For more information, see Greengrass service role.
Choosing an IAM role in the Amazon IoT Greengrass console
In the Amazon IoT Greengrass console, you might need to choose a Greengrass service role or a Greengrass group role from a list of IAM roles in your account.
-
The Greengrass service role allows Amazon IoT Greengrass to access your Amazon resources in other services on your behalf. Typically, you don't need to choose the service role because the console can create and configure it for you. For more information, see Greengrass service role.
-
The Greengrass group role is used to allow Greengrass Lambda functions and connectors in the group to access your Amazon resources. It can also give Amazon IoT Greengrass permissions to export streams to Amazon services and write CloudWatch logs. For more information, see Greengrass group role.