Users, Roles, and Policies

IAM operates much like a highly detailed and customizable security system, organizing users, roles, groups, and policies to ensure that the right individuals and services have the appropriate access to resources.

Figure 3.1 shows how IAM users, roles, groups, and policies interact:

Figure 3.1 – IAM users, groups, and roles

You can now take a detailed look at IAM Users.

Users

IAM users are akin to individual employees in a company. Each user has a unique identity within AWS, and you can grant them access to various AWS services and resources. Users can be human users (such as developers or administrators) or can represent applications or services. When you create an IAM user, you define their access level, ranging from administrative access to limited, read-only access. Users can be assigned long-term credentials, such as a password for AWS Management Console access or access keys for programmatic access (an API...