Managing resources, permissions, and identities using IAM
To understand AWS IAM, we must first understand how authentication and identity management works. Users, groups, roles, permissions, and policies are fundamental concepts that need to be fully understood in order to grasp how resources are secured using AWS IAM. In the following sections, we'll define those terms.
Users
An IAM user is an individual that needs to access, interact with, and potentially modify data and AWS resources. Users can interact in one of three ways:
- AWS console
- The AWS Command-line Interface (CLI)
- AWS APIs
Other than the root user, when a new user is set up, no implicit permissions or credentials are given, and that new user will not be able to access any resources until permission is explicitly assigned.
Groups
An IAM group, put simply, is a collection of users. Putting users into groups facilitates permission management. Having users combined into groups gives...
