Troubleshooting AWS Systems Manager identity and access

Use the following information to help you diagnose and fix common issues that you might encounter when working with AWS Systems Manager and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).

I am not authorized to perform an action in Systems Manager

If the AWS Management Console tells you that you're not authorized to perform an action, then you must contact your administrator for assistance. Your administrator is the person that provided you with your sign-in credentials.

The following example error occurs when the mateojackson user tries to use the console to view details about a document but doesn't have ssm:GetDocument permissions.

User: arn:aws:ssm::123456789012:user/mateojackson isn't authorized to perform: ssm:GetDocument on resource: MyExampleDocument

In this case, Mateo asks his administrator to update his policies to allow him to access the MyExampleDocument resource using the ssm:GetDocument action.

I am not authorized to perform iam:PassRole

If you receive an error that you're not authorized to perform the iam:PassRole action, your policies must be updated to allow you to pass a role to Systems Manager.

Some AWS services allow you to pass an existing role to that service instead of creating a new service role or service-linked role. To do this, you must have permissions to pass the role to the service.

The following example error occurs when an IAM user named marymajor tries to use the console to perform an action in Systems Manager. However, the action requires the service to have permissions that are granted by a service role. Mary does not have permissions to pass the role to the service.

User: arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/marymajor is not authorized to perform: iam:PassRole

In this case, Mary's policies must be updated to allow her to perform the iam:PassRole action.

If you need help, contact your AWS administrator. Your administrator is the person who provided you with your sign-in credentials.

I want to allow people outside of my AWS account to access my Systems Manager resources

You can create a role that users in other accounts or people outside of your organization can use to access your resources. You can specify who is trusted to assume the role. For services that support resource-based policies or access control lists (ACLs), you can use those policies to grant people access to your resources.

To learn more, consult the following:

• To learn whether Systems Manager supports these features, see How AWS Systems Manager works with IAM.

• To learn how to provide access to your resources across AWS accounts that you own, see Providing access to an IAM user in another AWS account that you own in the IAM User Guide.

• To learn how to provide access to your resources to third-party AWS accounts, see Providing access to AWS accounts owned by third parties in the IAM User Guide.

• To learn how to provide access through identity federation, see Providing access to externally authenticated users (identity federation) in the IAM User Guide.

• To learn the difference between using roles and resource-based policies for cross-account access, see How IAM roles differ from resource-based policies in the IAM User Guide.