Creating an IAM role as default for Amazon Redshift - Amazon Redshift
IAM roles created in the consolePermissions of the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policyManaging IAM roles created for a cluster using the consoleManaging IAM roles created on the cluster using the Amazon CLI
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Creating an IAM role as default for Amazon Redshift

When you create IAM roles through the Redshift console, Amazon Redshift programmatically creates the roles in your Amazon Web Services account and automatically attaches existing Amazon managed policies to them. This approach means that you can stay within the Redshift console and don't have to switch to the IAM console for role creation. For more granular control of permissions for an existing IAM role that was created in the Amazon Redshift console, you can attach a customized managed policy to the IAM role.

IAM roles created in the console

When you use the Amazon Redshift console to create IAM roles, Amazon Redshift tracks all IAM roles created through the console. Amazon Redshift preselects the most recent default IAM role for creating all new clusters and restoring clusters from snapshots.

You can create an IAM role through the console that has a policy with permissions to run SQL commands. These commands include COPY, UNLOAD, CREATE EXTERNAL FUNCTION, CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE, CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA, CREATE MODEL, or CREATE LIBRARY. Optionally, you can get more granular control of user access to your Amazon resources by creating and attaching custom policies to the IAM role.

When you created an IAM role and set it as the default for the cluster using console, you don't have to provide the IAM role's Amazon Resource Name (ARN) to perform authentication and authorization.

The IAM role that you create through the console for your cluster has the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy automatically attached. This IAM role allows Amazon Redshift to copy, unload, query, and analyze data for Amazon resources in your IAM account. The managed policy provides access to COPY, UNLOAD, CREATE EXTERNAL FUNCTION, CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA, CREATE MODEL, and CREATE LIBRARY operations. The policy also grants permissions to run SELECT statements for related Amazon services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon CloudWatch Logs, Amazon SageMaker AI, and Amazon Glue.

The CREATE EXTERNAL FUNCTION, CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA, CREATE MODEL, and CREATE LIBRARY commands have a default keyword. For this keyword for these commands, Amazon Redshift uses the IAM role that is set as the default and associated with the cluster when the command runs. You can run the DEFAULT_IAM_ROLE command to check the current default IAM role that is attached to the cluster.

To control access privileges of the IAM role created and set as default for your Redshift cluster, use the ASSUMEROLE privilege. This access control applies to database users and groups when they run commands such as the ones listed preceding. After you grant the ASSUMEROLE privilege to a user or group for the IAM role, the user or group can assume that role when running these commands. By using the ASSUMEROLE privilege, you can grant access to the appropriate commands as required.

Using the Amazon Redshift console, you can do the following:

Permissions of the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy

The following example shows the permissions in the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy that allow certain actions for the IAM role that is set as default for your cluster. The IAM role with permission policies attached authorizes what a user or group can and can't do. Given these permissions, you can run the COPY command from Amazon S3, run UNLOAD, and use the CREATE MODEL command. 

{
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:GetBucketAcl",
                "s3:GetBucketCors",
                "s3:GetEncryptionConfiguration",
                "s3:GetBucketLocation",
                "s3:ListBucket",
                "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
                "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts",
                "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:PutBucketAcl",
                "s3:PutBucketCors",
                "s3:DeleteObject",
                "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
                "s3:CreateBucket"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::redshift-downloads",
                "arn:aws:s3:::redshift-downloads/*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::*redshift*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::*redshift*/*"
            ]
}

The following example shows the permissions in the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy that allow certain actions for the IAM role that is set as default for the cluster. The IAM role with permission policies attached authorizes what a user or group can and can't do. Given the following permissions, you can run the CREATE EXTERNAL FUNCTION command.

{
    "Action": [
        "lambda:InvokeFunction"
    ],
    "Resource": "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:*redshift*"
}

The following example shows the permissions in the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy that allow certain actions for the IAM role that is set as default for the cluster. The IAM role with permission policies attached authorizes what a user or group can and can't do. Given the following permissions, you can run the CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA and CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE commands needed for Amazon Redshift Spectrum. 

{
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "glue:CreateDatabase",
                "glue:DeleteDatabase",
                "glue:GetDatabase",
                "glue:GetDatabases",
                "glue:UpdateDatabase",
                "glue:CreateTable",
                "glue:DeleteTable",
                "glue:BatchDeleteTable",
                "glue:UpdateTable",
                "glue:GetTable",
                "glue:GetTables",
                "glue:BatchCreatePartition",
                "glue:CreatePartition",
                "glue:DeletePartition",
                "glue:BatchDeletePartition",
                "glue:UpdatePartition",
                "glue:GetPartition",
                "glue:GetPartitions",
                "glue:BatchGetPartition"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:glue:*:*:table/*redshift*/*",
                "arn:aws:glue:*:*:catalog",
                "arn:aws:glue:*:*:database/*redshift*"
            ]
}

The following example shows the permissions in the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess managed policy that allow certain actions for the IAM role set as default for the cluster. The IAM role with permission policies attached authorizes what a user or group can and can't do. Given the following permissions, you can run the CREATE EXTERNAL SCHEMA command using federated queries. 

{
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:GetResourcePolicy",
                "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
                "secretsmanager:DescribeSecret",
                "secretsmanager:ListSecretVersionIds"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:secretsmanager:*:*:secret:*Redshift*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:GetRandomPassword",
                "secretsmanager:ListSecrets"
            ],
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "secretsmanager:ResourceTag/Redshift": "true"
                }
            }
},

Managing IAM roles created for a cluster using the console

To create, modify, and remove IAM roles created from the Amazon Redshift console, use the Clusters section in the console.

Creating an IAM role as the default

On the console, you can create an IAM role for your cluster that has the AmazonRedshiftAllCommandsFullAccess policy automatically attached. The new IAM role that you create allows Amazon Redshift to copy, load, query, and analyze data from Amazon resources in your IAM account.

There can only be one IAM role set as the default for the cluster. If you create another IAM role as the cluster default when an existing IAM role is currently assigned as the default, the new IAM role replaces the other one as default.

To create a new cluster and an IAM role set as the default for the new cluster

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/redshiftv2/.

  2. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters. The clusters for your account in the current Amazon Web Services Region are listed. A subset of properties of each cluster is displayed in columns in the list.

  3. Choose Create cluster to create a cluster.

  4. Follow the instructions on the console page to enter the properties for Cluster configuration. For more information about this step, see Creating a cluster.

  5. (Optional) Choose Load sample data to load the sample data set to your Amazon Redshift cluster to start using the query editor to query data.

    If you are behind a firewall, the database port must be an open port that accepts inbound connections.

  6. Follow the instructions on the console page to enter properties for Database configurations.

  7. Under Cluster permissions, from Manage IAM roles, choose Create IAM role.

  8. Specify an Amazon S3 bucket for the IAM role to access by choosing one of the following methods:

    • Choose No additional Amazon S3 bucket to create the IAM role without specifying specific Amazon S3 buckets.

    • Choose Any Amazon S3 bucket to allow users that have access to your Amazon Redshift cluster to also access any Amazon S3 bucket and its contents in your Amazon Web Services account.

    • Choose Specific Amazon S3 buckets to specify one or more Amazon S3 buckets that the IAM role being created has permission to access. Then choose one or more Amazon S3 buckets from the table.

  9. Choose Create IAM role as default. Amazon Redshift automatically creates and sets the IAM role as the default for your cluster.

  10. Choose Create cluster to create the cluster. The cluster might take several minutes to be ready to use.

Removing IAM roles from your cluster

You can remove one or more IAM roles from your cluster.

To remove IAM roles from your cluster

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/redshiftv2/.

  2. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters. The clusters for your account in the current Amazon Web Services Region are listed. A subset of properties of each cluster is displayed in columns in the list.

  3. Choose the cluster that you want to remove the IAM role from.

  4. Under Cluster permissions, choose one or more IAM roles that you want to remove from the cluster.

  5. From Manage IAM roles, choose Remove IAM roles.

Associating IAM roles with your cluster

You can associate one or more IAM roles with your cluster.

To associate IAM roles with your cluster

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/redshiftv2/.

  2. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters. The clusters for your account in the current Amazon Web Services Region are listed. A subset of properties of each cluster is displayed in columns in the list.

  3. Choose the cluster that you want to associate IAM roles with.

  4. Under Cluster permissions, choose one or more IAM roles that you want to associate with the cluster.

  5. From Manage IAM roles, choose Associate IAM roles.

  6. Choose one ore more IAM roles to associate with your cluster.

  7. Choose Associate IAM roles.

Setting an IAM role as the default

You can set an IAM role as the default for your cluster.

To make an IAM role the default for your cluster

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/redshiftv2/.

  2. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters. The clusters for your account in the current Amazon Web Services Region are listed. A subset of properties of each cluster is displayed in columns in the list.

  3. Choose the cluster that you want to set a default IAM role for.

  4. Under Cluster permissions, from Associated IAM roles, choose an IAM role that you want make as default for the cluster.

  5. Under Set default, choose Make default.

  6. When prompted, choose Set default to confirm making the specified IAM role as the default.

Making an IAM role no longer default for your cluster

You can make an IAM role no longer the default for your cluster.

To clear an IAM role as the default for your cluster

  1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open the Amazon Redshift console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/redshiftv2/.

  2. On the navigation menu, choose Clusters. The clusters for your account in the current Amazon Web Services Region are listed. A subset of properties of each cluster is displayed in columns in the list.

  3. Choose the cluster that you want to associate IAM roles with.

  4. Under Cluster permissions, from Associated IAM roles, choose the default IAM role.

  5. Under Set default, choose Clear default.

  6. When prompted, choose Clear default to confirm clearing the specified IAM role as the default.

Managing IAM roles created on the cluster using the Amazon CLI

You can manage IAM roles created on the cluster using the Amazon CLI.

To create an Amazon Redshift cluster with an IAM role set as default

To create an Amazon Redshift cluster with an IAM role set it as the default for the cluster, use the aws redshift create-cluster Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command creates an Amazon Redshift cluster and the IAM role named myrole1. The Amazon CLI command also sets myrole1 as the default for the cluster.

aws redshift create-cluster \
    --node-type dc2.large \
    --number-of-nodes 2 \
    --master-username adminuser \
    --master-user-password TopSecret1 \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster \
    --iam-roles 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1' 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2' \
    --default-iam-role-arn 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",      
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            }
        ]
        ...
    }
}

To add one or more IAM roles to an Amazon Redshift cluster

To add one or more IAM roles associated to the cluster, use the aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command adds myrole3 and myrole4 to the cluster.

aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster \
    --add-iam-roles 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3' 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole4'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole4",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}

To remove one or more IAM roles from an Amazon Redshift cluster

To remove one or more IAM roles associated to the cluster, use the aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command removes myrole3 and myrole4 from the cluster.

aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster \
    --remove-iam-roles 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3' 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole4'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3",
                "ApplyStatus": "removing"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole4",
                "ApplyStatus": "removing"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}

To set an associated IAM role as the default for the cluster

To set an associated IAM role as the default for the cluster, use the aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command sets myrole2 as the default for the cluster.

aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster \
    --default-iam-role-arn 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}

To set an unassociated IAM role as the default for the cluster

To set an unassociated IAM role as the default for the cluster, use the aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command adds myrole2 to the Amazon Redshift cluster and sets it as the default for the cluster.

aws redshift modify-cluster-iam-roles \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster \
    --add-iam-roles 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3' \
    --default-iam-role-arn 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "in-sync"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole3",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}

To restore a cluster from a snapshot and set an IAM role as the default for it

When you restore your cluster from a snapshot, you can either associate an existing IAM role or create a new one and set it as the default for the cluster.

To restore an Amazon Redshift cluster from a snapshot and set an IAM role as the cluster default, use the aws redshift restore-from-cluster-snapshot Amazon CLI command.

The following Amazon CLI command restores the cluster from a snapshot and sets myrole2 as the default for the cluster.

aws redshift restore-from-cluster-snapshot \
    --cluster-identifier mycluster-clone \
    --snapshot-identifier my-snapshot-id
    --iam-roles 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1' 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2' \
    --default-iam-role-arn 'arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1'

The following snippet is an example of the response.

{
    "Cluster": {
        "ClusterIdentifier": "mycluster-clone",
        "NodeType": "dc2.large",
        "MasterUsername": "adminuser",
        "DefaultIamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
        "IamRoles": [
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole1",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            },
            {
                "IamRoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::012345678910:role/myrole2",
                "ApplyStatus": "adding"
            }
        ],
        ...
    }
}