Create a permission set - Amazon IAM Identity Center
Create a permission set that applies least-privilege permissions
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Create a permission set

Permission sets are stored in IAM Identity Center and define the level of access that users and groups have to an Amazon Web Services account. The first permission set you create is the administrative permission set. If you completed one of the Getting started tutorials you already created your administrative permission set. Use this procedure to create permission sets as described in the Amazon managed policies for job functions topic in the IAM User Guide.

  1. Do either of the following to sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console.

    • New to Amazon (root user) – Sign in as the account owner by choosing Root user and entering your Amazon Web Services account email address. On the next page, enter your password.

    • Already using Amazon (IAM credentials) – Sign in using your IAM credentials with administrative permissions.

  2. Open the IAM Identity Center console.

  3. In the IAM Identity Center navigation pane, under Multi-account permissions, choose Permission sets.

  4. Choose Create permission set.

    1. On the Select permission set type page, in the Permission set type section, choose Predefined permission set.

    2. In the Policy for predefined permission set section, choose one of the following:

      • AdministratorAccess

      • Billing

      • DatabaseAdministrator

      • DataScientist

      • NetworkAdministrator

      • PowerUserAccess

      • ReadOnlyAccess

      • SecurityAudit

      • SupportUser

      • SystemAdministrator

      • ViewOnlyAccess

  5. On the Specify permission set details page, keep the default settings and choose Next. The default setting limits your session to one hour.

  6. On the Review and create page, confirm the following:

    1. For Step 1: Select permission set type, displays the type of permission set you chose.

    2. For Step 2: Define permission set details, displays the name of the permission set you chose.

    3. Choose Create.

Create a permission set that applies least-privilege permissions

To follow the best practice of applying least-privilege permissions, after you create an administrative permission set, you create a more restrictive permission set and assign it to one or more users. The permission sets created in the previous procedure provide a starting point for you to assess the amount of access to resources your users need. To switch to least privilege permissions, you can run IAM Access Analyzer to monitor principals with Amazon managed policies. After learning which permissions they're using, then you can write a custom policy or generate a policy with only the required permissions for your team.

With IAM Identity Center, you can assign multiple permission sets to the same user. Your administrative user should also be assigned additional, more restrictive, permission sets. That way, they can access your Amazon Web Services account with only the permissions that required, rather than always using their administrative permissions.

For example, if you're a developer, after you create your administrative user in IAM Identity Center, you can create a new permission set that grants PowerUserAccess permissions, and then assign that permission set to yourself. Unlike the administrative permission set, which uses AdministratorAccess permissions, the PowerUserAccess permission set doesn't allow management of IAM users and groups. When you sign into the Amazon access portal to access your Amazon account, you can choose PowerUserAccess rather than the AdministratorAccess to perform development tasks in the account.

Keep the following considerations in mind:

  • To get started quickly with creating a more restrictive permission set, use a predefined permission set rather than a custom permission set.

    With a predefined permission set, which uses predefined permissions, you choose a single Amazon managed policy from a list of available policies. Each policy grants a specific level of access to Amazon services and resources or permissions for a common job function. For information about each of these policies, see Amazon managed policies for job functions.

  • You can configure the session duration for a permission set to control the length of time that a user is signed into an Amazon Web Services account.

    When users federate into their Amazon Web Services account and use the Amazon Management Console or the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI), IAM Identity Center uses the session duration setting on the permission set to control the duration of the session. By default, the value for Session duration, which determines the length of time that a user can be signed into an Amazon Web Services account before Amazon signs the user out of the session, is set to one hour. You can specify a maximum value of 12 hours. For more information, see Set session duration.

  • You can also configure the Amazon access portal session duration to control the length of time that a workforce user is signed into the portal.

    By default, the value for Maximum session duration, which determines the length of time that a workforce user can be signed in to the Amazon access portal before they must re-authenticate, is eight hours. You can specify a maximum value of 90 days. For more information, see Configure the session duration of the Amazon Web Services access portal and IAM Identity Center integrated applications.

  • When you sign into the Amazon access portal, choose the role that provides least-privilege permissions.

    Each permission set that you create and assign to your user appears as an available role in the Amazon access portal. When you sign in to the portal as that user, choose the role that corresponds to the most restrictive permission set that you can use to perform tasks in the account, rather than AdministratorAccess.

  • You can add other users to IAM Identity Center and assign existing or new permission sets to those users.

    For information, see, Assign Amazon Web Services account access for groups.