Identity-based policy examples for Amazon SQS

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify Amazon SQS resources. They also can't perform tasks by using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or AWS API. To grant users permission to perform actions on the resources that they need, an IAM administrator can create IAM policies. The administrator can then add the IAM policies to roles, and users can assume the roles.

To learn how to create an IAM identity-based policy by using these example JSON policy documents, see Create IAM policies (console) in the IAM User Guide.

For details about actions and resource types defined by Amazon SQS, including the format of the ARNs for each of the resource types, see Actions, Resources, and Condition Keys for Amazon Simple Queue Service in the Service Authorization Reference.

Note

When you configure lifecycle hooks for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, you don't need to write a policy to send messages to an Amazon SQS queue. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Lifecycle Hooks in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete Amazon SQS resources in your account. These actions can incur costs for your AWS account. When you create or edit identity-based policies, follow these guidelines and recommendations:

• Get started with AWS managed policies and move toward least-privilege permissions – To get started granting permissions to your users and workloads, use the AWS managed policies that grant permissions for many common use cases. They are available in your AWS account. We recommend that you reduce permissions further by defining AWS customer managed policies that are specific to your use cases. For more information, see AWS managed policies or AWS managed policies for job functions in the IAM User Guide.

• Apply least-privilege permissions – When you set permissions with IAM policies, grant only the permissions required to perform a task. You do this by defining the actions that can be taken on specific resources under specific conditions, also known as least-privilege permissions. For more information about using IAM to apply permissions, see Policies and permissions in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

• Use conditions in IAM policies to further restrict access – You can add a condition to your policies to limit access to actions and resources. For example, you can write a policy condition to specify that all requests must be sent using SSL. You can also use conditions to grant access to service actions if they are used through a specific AWS service, such as AWS CloudFormation. For more information, see IAM JSON policy elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.

• Use IAM Access Analyzer to validate your IAM policies to ensure secure and functional permissions – IAM Access Analyzer validates new and existing policies so that the policies adhere to the IAM policy language (JSON) and IAM best practices. IAM Access Analyzer provides more than 100 policy checks and actionable recommendations to help you author secure and functional policies. For more information, see Validate policies with IAM Access Analyzer in the IAM User Guide.

• Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) – If you have a scenario that requires IAM users or a root user in your AWS account, turn on MFA for additional security. To require MFA when API operations are called, add MFA conditions to your policies. For more information, see Secure API access with MFA in the IAM User Guide.

For more information about best practices in IAM, see Security best practices in IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Using the Amazon SQS console

To access the Amazon Simple Queue Service console, you must have a minimum set of permissions. These permissions must allow you to list and view details about the Amazon SQS resources in your AWS account. If you create an identity-based policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for entities (users or roles) with that policy.

You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the AWS CLI or the AWS API. Instead, allow access to only the actions that match the API operation that they're trying to perform.

To ensure that users and roles can still use the Amazon SQS console, also attach the Amazon SQS AmazonSQSReadOnlyAccess AWS managed policy to the entities. For more information, see Adding permissions to a user in the IAM User Guide.

Allow users to view their own permissions

This example shows how you might create a policy that allows IAM users to view the inline and managed policies that are attached to their user identity. This policy includes permissions to complete this action on the console or programmatically using the AWS CLI or AWS API.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ViewOwnUserInfo",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetUserPolicy",
                "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
                "iam:ListAttachedUserPolicies",
                "iam:ListUserPolicies",
                "iam:GetUser"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "NavigateInConsole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetGroupPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:ListAttachedGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
                "iam:ListPolicies",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Allow a user to create queues

In the following example, we create a policy for Bob that lets him access all Amazon SQS actions, but only with queues whose names are prefixed with the literal string alice_queue_.

Amazon SQS doesn't automatically grant the creator of a queue permissions to use the queue. Therefore, we must explicitly grant Bob permissions to use all Amazon SQS actions in addition to CreateQueue action in the IAM policy.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [{
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "sqs:*",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:sqs:*:123456789012:alice_queue_*"
   }]
}

Allow developers to write messages to a shared queue

In the following example, we create a group for developers and attach a policy that lets the group use the Amazon SQS SendMessage action, but only with the queue that belongs to the specified AWS account and is named MyCompanyQueue.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [{
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "sqs:SendMessage",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:sqs:*:123456789012:MyCompanyQueue"
   }]
}

You can use * instead of SendMessage to grant the following actions to a principal on a shared queue: ChangeMessageVisibility, DeleteMessage, GetQueueAttributes, GetQueueUrl, ReceiveMessage, and SendMessage.

Note

Although * includes access provided by other permission types, Amazon SQS considers permissions separately. For example, it is possible to grant both * and SendMessage permissions to a user, even though a * includes the access provided by SendMessage.

This concept also applies when you remove a permission. If a principal has only a * permission, requesting to remove a SendMessage permission doesn't leave the principal with an everything-but permission. Instead, the request has no effect, because the principal doesn't possess an explicit SendMessage permission. To leave the principal with only the ReceiveMessage permission, first add the ReceiveMessage permission and then remove the * permission.

Allow managers to get the general size of queues

In the following example, we create a group for managers and attach a policy that lets the group use the Amazon SQS GetQueueAttributes action with all of the queues that belong to the specified AWS account.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [{
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "sqs:GetQueueAttributes",
      "Resource": "*"   
   }]
}

Allow a partner to send messages to a specific queue

You can accomplish this task using an Amazon SQS policy or an IAM policy. If your partner has an AWS account, it might be easier to use an Amazon SQS policy. However, any user in the partner's company who possesses the AWS security credentials can send messages to the queue. If you want to limit access to a particular user or application, you must treat the partner like a user in your own company and use an IAM policy instead of an Amazon SQS policy.

This example performs the following actions:

1. Create a group called WidgetCo to represent the partner company.

2. Create a user for the specific user or application at the partner's company who needs access.

3. Add the user to the group.

4. Attach a policy that gives the group access only to the SendMessage action for only the queue named WidgetPartnerQueue.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [{
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": "sqs:SendMessage",
         "Resource": "arn:aws:sqs:*:123456789012:WidgetPartnerQueue"
   }]
}