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 IAM Identity Center

Amazon IAM Identity Center uses Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to IAM Identity Center. It is predefined by IAM Identity Center and includes all the permissions that the service requires to call other Amazon services on your behalf. For more information, see Service-linked roles.

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

For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see Amazon Services That Work with IAM and look for the services that have Yes in the Service-Linked Role column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for IAM Identity Center

IAM Identity Center uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForSSO to grant IAM Identity Center permissions to manage Amazon resources, including IAM roles, policies, and SAML IdP on your behalf.

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following on roles on the path “/aws-reserved/sso.amazonaws.com/” and with the name prefix “AWSReservedSSO_”:

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following on SAML providers with name prefix as “AWSSSO_”:

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following on all organizations:

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following on all IAM roles (*):

The AWSServiceRoleForSSO service-linked role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following on “arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/sso.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForSSO”:

The role permissions policy allows IAM Identity Center to complete the following actions on resources.

{
   "Version":"2012-10-17",
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Sid":"IAMRoleProvisioningActions",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:AttachRolePolicy",
            "iam:CreateRole",
            "iam:DeleteRolePermissionsBoundary",
            "iam:PutRolePermissionsBoundary",
            "iam:PutRolePolicy",
            "iam:UpdateRole",
            "iam:UpdateRoleDescription",
            "iam:UpdateAssumeRolePolicy"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-reserved/sso.amazonaws.com/*"
         ],
         "Condition":{
            "StringNotEquals":{
               "aws:PrincipalOrgMasterAccountId":"${aws:PrincipalAccount}"
            }
         }
      },
      {
         "Sid":"IAMRoleReadActions",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:GetRole",
            "iam:ListRoles"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"IAMRoleCleanupActions",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:DeleteRole",
            "iam:DeleteRolePolicy",
            "iam:DetachRolePolicy",
            "iam:ListRolePolicies",
            "iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-reserved/sso.amazonaws.com/*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"IAMSLRCleanupActions",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:DeleteServiceLinkedRole",
            "iam:GetServiceLinkedRoleDeletionStatus",
            "iam:DeleteRole",
            "iam:GetRole"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/sso.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForSSO"
         ]
      },
      {
        "Sid": "IAMSAMLProviderCreationAction",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
          "iam:CreateSAMLProvider"
      ],
      "Resource": [
         "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:saml-provider/AWSSSO_*"
       ],
      "Condition": {
         "StringNotEquals": {
            "aws:PrincipalOrgMasterAccountId": "${aws:PrincipalAccount}"
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "Sid": "IAMSAMLProviderUpdateAction",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
          "iam:UpdateSAMLProvider"
        ],
        "Resource": [
           "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:saml-provider/AWSSSO_*"
        ]
      }, 
      {
         "Sid":"IAMSAMLProviderCleanupActions",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "iam:DeleteSAMLProvider",
            "iam:GetSAMLProvider"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "arn:aws-cn:iam::*:saml-provider/AWSSSO_*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "organizations:DescribeAccount",
            "organizations:DescribeOrganization",
            "organizations:ListAccounts",
            "organizations:ListAWSServiceAccessForOrganization",
            "organizations:ListDelegatedAdministrators"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"AllowUnauthAppForDirectory",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "ds:UnauthorizeApplication"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"AllowDescribeForDirectory",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "ds:DescribeDirectories",
            "ds:DescribeTrusts"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "*"
         ]
      },
      {
         "Sid":"AllowDescribeAndListOperationsOnIdentitySource",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "identitystore:DescribeUser",
            "identitystore:DescribeGroup",
            "identitystore:ListGroups",
            "identitystore:ListUsers"
         ],
         "Resource":[
            "*"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

You must configure permissions to allow an IAM entity (such as a user, group, or role) to create, edit, or delete a service-linked role. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions in the IAM User Guide.

Creating a service-linked role for IAM Identity Center

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. Once enabled, IAM Identity Center creates a service-linked role in all accounts within the organization in Amazon Organizations. IAM Identity Center also creates the same service-linked role in every account that is subsequently added to your organization. This role allows IAM Identity Center to access each account's resources on your behalf.

If you delete this service-link role and then need to create it again, you can use the same process to recreate the role in your account.

Editing a service-linked role for IAM Identity Center

IAM Identity Center does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForSSO 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 IAM Identity Center

You don't need to manually delete the AWSServiceRoleForSSO role. When an Amazon Web Services account is removed from an Amazon organization, IAM Identity Center automatically cleans up the resources and deletes the service-linked role from that Amazon Web Services account.

You can also use the IAM console, the IAM CLI, or the IAM API to manually delete the service-linked role. To do this, you must first manually clean up the resources for your service-linked role and then you can manually delete it.

To manually delete the service-linked role using IAM

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