It is essential to understand a few basic IAM terms to effectively manage real-life organizational users and their permissions for accessing AWS resources as per their roles and responsibilities. The following list briefly describes these terms, and subsequently goes into the details of each of the elements of IAM:
- User: A user is a person or an application that requires access to various AWS resources to perform designated tasks. A user can access AWS resources with either a username and password, or with an access key and secret key.
- Access key: An access key is a 20-character alphanumeric key that acts as a user ID.
- Secret key: A secret key is a 40-character alphanumeric key that acts as a password or secret key. The access key and secret key are used together for initiating API, SDK, and CLI authentication.
- Password policy: The password policy specifies the...
