Attributes for access control
Attributes for access control is the name of the page in the IAM Identity Center console where you select user attributes that you want to use in policies to control access to resources. You can assign users to workloads in Amazon based on existing attributes in the users' identity source.
For example, suppose you want to assign access to S3 buckets based on department names. While on the Attributes for access control page, you select the Department user attribute for use with attribute-based access control (ABAC). In the IAM Identity Center permission set, you then write a policy that grants users access only when the Department attribute matches the department tag that you assigned to your S3 buckets. IAM Identity Center passes the user's department attribute to the account being accessed. The attribute is then used to determine access based on the policy. For more information about ABAC, see Attribute-based access control.
Getting started
How you get started configuring attributes for access control depends on which identity source you are using. Regardless of the identity source you choose, after you have selected your attributes you need to create or edit permission set policies. These policies must grant user identities access to Amazon resources.
Choosing attributes when using IAM Identity Center as your identity source
When you configure IAM Identity Center as the identity source, you first add users and configure their attributes. Next, navigate to the Attributes for access control page and select the attributes you want to use in policies. Finally, navigate to the Amazon Web Services accounts page to create or edit permission sets to use the attributes for ABAC.
Choosing attributes when using Amazon Managed Microsoft AD as your identity source
When you configure IAM Identity Center with Amazon Managed Microsoft AD as your identity source, you first map a set of attributes from Active Directory to user attributes in IAM Identity Center. Next, navigate to the Attributes for access control page. Then choose which attributes to use in your ABAC configuration based on the existing set of SSO attributes mapped from Active Directory. Finally, author ABAC rules using the access control attributes in permission sets to grant user identities access to Amazon resources. For a list of the default mappings for user attributes in IAM Identity Center to the user attributes in your Amazon Managed Microsoft AD directory, see Default mappings.
Choosing attributes when using an external identity provider as your identity source
When you configure IAM Identity Center with an external identity provider (IdP) as your identity source, there are two ways to use attributes for ABAC.
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You can configure your IdP to send the attributes through SAML assertions. In this case, IAM Identity Center passes the attribute name and value from the IdP through for policy evaluation.
Note
Attributes in SAML assertions will not be visible to you on the Attributes for access control page. You will have to know these attributes in advance and add them to access control rules when you author policies. If you decide to trust your external IdPs for attributes, then these attributes will always be passed when users federate into Amazon Web Services accounts. In scenarios where the same attributes are coming to IAM Identity Center through SAML and SCIM, the SAML attributes value take precedence in access control decisions.
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You can configure which attributes you use from the Attributes for access control page in the IAM Identity Center console. The attributes values that you choose here replace the values for any matching attributes that come from an IdP through an assertion. Depending on whether you are using SCIM, consider the following:
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If using SCIM, the IdP automatically synchronizes the attribute values into IAM Identity Center. Additional attributes that are required for access control might not be present in the list of SCIM attributes. In that case, consider collaborating with the IT admin in your IdP to send such attributes to IAM Identity Center via SAML assertions using the required
https://aws.amazon.com/SAML/Attributes/AccessControl:prefix. For information about how to configure user attributes for access control in your IdP to send through SAML assertions, see the Getting started tutorials for your IdP. -
If you are not using SCIM, you must manually add the users and set their attributes just as if you were using IAM Identity Center as an identity source. Next, navigate to the Attributes for access control page and choose the attributes you want to use in policies.
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For a complete list of supported attributes for user attributes in IAM Identity Center to the user attributes in your external IdPs, see Supported external identity provider attributes.
To get started with ABAC in IAM Identity Center, see the following topics.