AWS IAM Explained: Understanding Users, Roles, Policies, and Permissions š
A beginner-friendly guide to AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), covering users, groups, roles, policies, permissions, and why least-privilege access matters when working with AWS.
When I started exploring AWS, one of the first concepts I came across was **IAM (Identity and Access Management)**.
At first, terms like users, roles, policies, permissions, and groups felt confusing. After spending some time understanding the basics, I realized that IAM is one of the most important concepts to learn before working seriously with AWS services.
In this article, I'm sharing my beginner-friendly understanding of AWS IAM.
š What is AWS IAM?
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is used to control **who can access AWS resources and what they are allowed to do**.
For example, imagine you have an application running on Amazon EC2 and files stored in Amazon S3.
You may want:
- A developer to manage the application.
- A server to read specific files from S3.
- An administrator to manage multiple AWS services.
- Another user to have read-only access.
- A server to read specific files from S3.
- An administrator to manage multiple AWS services.
- Another user to have read-only access.
IAM helps define these access rules.
š¤ IAM Users
An IAM user represents an identity that can interact with AWS resources.
A user can have credentials and permissions that determine which AWS actions they can perform.
For example, you might have:
Developer
ā
IAM User
ā
Permission to access specific AWS resources
Developer
ā
IAM User
ā
Permission to access specific AWS resources
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