Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Using service-linked roles for Lake Formation

Amazon Lake Formation uses an Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked role. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to Lake Formation. The service-linked role is predefined by Lake Formation and includes all the permissions that the service requires to call other Amazon services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes setting up Lake Formation easier because you don’t have to create a role and manually add the necessary permissions. Lake Formation defines the permissions of its service-linked role, and unless defined otherwise, only Lake Formation can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy can't be attached to any other IAM entity.

This service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

When you use a service-linked role in account A to register an Amazon S3 location that is owned by account B, the Amazon S3 bucket policy (a resource-based policy) in account B must grant access permissions to the service-linked role in account A.

Service-linked role permissions for Lake Formation

Lake Formation uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForLakeFormationDataAccess. This role provides a set of Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) permissions that enable the Lake Formation integrated service (such as Amazon Athena) to access registered locations. When you register a data lake location, you must provide a role that has the required Amazon S3 read/write permissions on that location. Instead of creating a role with the required Amazon S3 permissions, you can use this service-linked role.

The first time that you name the service-linked role as the role with which to register a path, the service-linked role and a new IAM policy are created on your behalf. Lake Formation adds the path to the inline policy and attaches it to the service-linked role. When you register subsequent paths with the service-linked role, Lake Formation adds the path to the existing policy.

While signed in as a data lake administrator, register a data lake location. Then, in the IAM console, search for the role AWSServiceRoleForLakeFormationDataAccess and view its attached policies.

For example, after you register the location s3://my-kinesis-test/logs, Lake Formation creates the following inline policy and attaches it to AWSServiceRoleForLakeFormationDataAccess.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "LakeFormationDataAccessPermissionsForS3",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:DeleteObject",
                "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
                "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::my-kinesis-test/logs/*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "LakeFormationDataAccessPermissionsForS3ListBucket",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:ListBucket",
                "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::my-kinesis-test"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Creating a Service-Linked Role for Lake Formation

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you register an Amazon S3 location with Lake Formation in the Amazon Web Services Management Console, the Amazon CLI, or the Amazon API, Lake Formation 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 register an Amazon S3 location with Lake Formation, Lake Formation creates the service-linked role for you again.

You can also use the IAM console to create a service-linked role with the Lake Formation use case. In the Amazon CLI or the Amazon API, create a service-linked role with the lakeformation.amazonaws.com service name. For more information, see Creating a Service-Linked Role in the IAM User Guide. If you delete this service-linked role, you can use this same process to create the role again.

Editing a Service-Linked Role for Lake Formation

Lake Formation does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForLakeFormationDataAccess 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 Lake Formation

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 clean up the resources for your service-linked role before you can manually delete it.

To manually delete the service-linked role using IAM

Use the IAM console, the Amazon CLI, or the Amazon API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForLakeFormationDataAccess service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a Service-Linked Role in the IAM User Guide.