Identity-based policy examples for Amazon Elastic Container Service

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify Amazon ECS 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 Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.

For details about actions and resource types defined by Amazon ECS, including the format of the ARNs for each of the resource types, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for Amazon Elastic Container Service in the Service Authorization Reference.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete Amazon ECS 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 IAM Access Analyzer policy validation 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 Configuring MFA-protected API access in the IAM User Guide.

For more information about best practices in IAM, see Security best practices in IAM 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": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Cluster examples

The following IAM policy allows permission to create and list clusters. The CreateCluster and ListClusters actions do not accept any resources, so the resource definition is set to * for all resources.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:CreateCluster",
                "ecs:ListClusters"
            ],
            "Resource": ["*"]
        }
    ]
}

The following IAM policy allows permission to describe and delete a specific cluster. The DescribeClusters and DeleteCluster actions accept cluster ARNs as resources.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:DescribeClusters",
                "ecs:DeleteCluster"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"]
        }
    ]
}

The following IAM policy can be attached to a user or group that would only allow that user or group to perform operations on a specific cluster.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Action": [
                "ecs:Describe*",
                "ecs:List*"
            ],
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Action": [
                "ecs:DeleteCluster",
                "ecs:DeregisterContainerInstance",
                "ecs:ListContainerInstances",
                "ecs:RegisterContainerInstance",
                "ecs:SubmitContainerStateChange",
                "ecs:SubmitTaskStateChange"
            ],
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:<aws_account_id>:cluster/default"
        },
        {
            "Action": [
                "ecs:DescribeContainerInstances",
                "ecs:DescribeTasks",
                "ecs:ListTasks",
                "ecs:UpdateContainerAgent",
                "ecs:StartTask",
                "ecs:StopTask",
                "ecs:RunTask"
            ],
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {"ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:us-east-1:<aws_account_id>:cluster/default"}
            }
        }
    ]
}

Container instance examples

Container instance registration is handled by the Amazon ECS agent, but there may be times where you want to allow a user to deregister an instance manually from a cluster. Perhaps the container instance was accidentally registered to the wrong cluster, or the instance was terminated with tasks still running on it.

The following IAM policy allows a user to list and deregister container instances in a specified cluster:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:DeregisterContainerInstance",
                "ecs:ListContainerInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"]
        }
    ]
}

The following IAM policy allows a user to describe a specified container instance in a specified cluster. To open this permission up to all container instances in a cluster, you can replace the container instance UUID with *.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": ["ecs:DescribeContainerInstances"],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {"ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"}
            },
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:container-instance/<cluster_name>/<container_instance_UUID>"]
        }
    ]
}

Task definition examples

Task definition IAM policies do not support resource-level permissions, but the following IAM policy allows a user to register, list, and describe task definitions:

If you use the console, you must add CloudFormation: CreateStack as an Action.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:RegisterTaskDefinition",
                "ecs:ListTaskDefinitions",
                "ecs:DescribeTaskDefinition"
            ],
            "Resource": ["*"]
        }
    ]
}

Run Task Example

The resources for RunTask are task definitions. To limit which clusters a user can run task definitions on, you can specify them in the Condition block. The advantage is that you don't have to list both task definitions and clusters in your resources to allow the appropriate access. You can apply one, the other, or both.

The following IAM policy allows permission to run any revision of a specific task definition on a specific cluster:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": ["ecs:RunTask"],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {"ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"}
            },
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:task-definition/<task_family>:*"]
        }
    ]
}

Start task example

The resources for StartTask are task definitions. To limit which clusters and container instances a user can start task definitions on, you can specify them in the Condition block. The advantage is that you don't have to list both task definitions and clusters in your resources to allow the appropriate access. You can apply one, the other, or both.

The following IAM policy allows permission to start any revision of a specific task definition on a specific cluster and specific container instance.

Note

For this example, when you call the StartTask API with the AWS CLI or another AWS SDK, you must specify the task definition revision so that the Resource mapping matches.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": ["ecs:StartTask"],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {
                    "ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>",
                    "ecs:container-instances": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:container-instance/<cluster_name>/<container_instance_UUID>"]
                }
            },
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:task-definition/<task_family>:*"]
        }
    ]
}

List and describe task examples

The following IAM policy allows a user to list tasks for a specified cluster:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": ["ecs:ListTasks"],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {"ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"}
            },
            "Resource": ["*"]
        }
    ]
}

The following IAM policy allows a user to describe a specified task in a specified cluster:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": ["ecs:DescribeTasks"],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {"ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>"}
            },
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:task/<cluster_name>/<task_UUID>"]
        }
    ]
}

Create service example

The following IAM policy allows a user to create Amazon ECS services in the AWS Management Console:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "application-autoscaling:Describe*",
                "application-autoscaling:PutScalingPolicy",
                "application-autoscaling:RegisterScalableTarget",
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
                "ecs:List*",
                "ecs:Describe*",
                "ecs:CreateService",
                "elasticloadbalancing:Describe*",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetRole",
                "iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies",
                "iam:ListRoles",
                "iam:ListGroups",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": ["*"]
        }
    ]
}

Update service example

The following IAM policy allows a user to update Amazon ECS services in the AWS Management Console:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "application-autoscaling:Describe*",
                "application-autoscaling:PutScalingPolicy",
                "application-autoscaling:DeleteScalingPolicy",
                "application-autoscaling:RegisterScalableTarget",
                "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms",
                "cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm",
                "ecs:List*",
                "ecs:Describe*",
                "ecs:UpdateService",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetRole",
                "iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies",
                "iam:ListRoles",
                "iam:ListGroups",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": ["*"]
        }
    ]
}

Describing Amazon ECS services based on tags

You can use conditions in your identity-based policy to control access to Amazon ECS resources based on tags. This example shows how you might create a policy that allows describing your services. However, permission is granted only if the service tag Owner has the value of that user's user name. This policy also grants the permissions necessary to complete this action on the console.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "DescribeServices",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "ecs:DescribeServices",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "ViewServiceIfOwner",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "ecs:DescribeServices",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ecs:*:*:service/*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {"ecs:ResourceTag/Owner": "${aws:username}"}
            }
        }
    ]
}

You can attach this policy to the IAM users in your account. If a user named richard-roe attempts to describe an Amazon ECS service, the service must be tagged Owner=richard-roe or owner=richard-roe. Otherwise he is denied access. The condition tag key Owner matches both Owner and owner because condition key names are not case-sensitive. For more information, see IAM JSON Policy Elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.

Deny Service Connect Namespace Override Example

The following IAM policy denies a user from overriding the default Service Connect namespace in a service configuration. The default namespace is set in the cluster. However, you can override it in a service configuration. For consistency, consider setting all your new services to use the same namespace. Use the following context keys to require services to use a specific namespace. Replace the <region>, <aws_account_id>, <cluster_name> and <namespace_id> with your own in the following example.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ecs:CreateService",
                "ecs:UpdateService"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "ArnEquals": {
                    "ecs:cluster": "arn:aws:ecs:<region>:<aws_account_id>:cluster/<cluster_name>",
                    "ecs:namespace": "arn:aws:servicediscovery:<region>:<aws_account_id>:namespace/<namespace_id>"
                }
            },
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}