Identify AWS resources with Amazon Resource Names (ARNs)

Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) uniquely identify AWS resources. We require an ARN when you need to specify a resource unambiguously across all of AWS, such as in IAM policies, Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) tags, and API calls.

ARN format

The following are the general formats for ARNs. The specific formats depend on the resource. To use an ARN, replace the italicized text with the resource-specific information. Be aware that the ARNs for some resources omit the Region, the account ID, or both the Region and the account ID.

arn:partition:service:region:account-id:resource-id
arn:partition:service:region:account-id:resource-type/resource-id
arn:partition:service:region:account-id:resource-type:resource-id

partition

The partition in which the resource is located. A partition is a group of AWS Regions. Each AWS account is scoped to one partition.

The following are the supported partitions:

• aws - AWS Regions

• aws-cn - China Regions

• aws-us-gov - AWS GovCloud (US) Regions

service

The service namespace that identifies the AWS product.

region

The Region code. For example, us-east-2 for US East (Ohio). For the list of Region codes, see Regional endpoints in the AWS General Reference.

account-id

The ID of the AWS account that owns the resource, without the hyphens. For example, 123456789012.

resource-type

The resource type. For example, vpc for a virtual private cloud (VPC).

resource-id

The resource identifier. This is the name of the resource, the ID of the resource, or a resource path. Some resource identifiers include a parent resource (sub-resource-type/parent-resource/sub-resource) or a qualifier such as a version (resource-type:resource-name:qualifier).

Examples

IAM user

arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/johndoe

SNS topic

arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:123456789012:example-sns-topic-name

VPC

arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:vpc/vpc-0e9801d129EXAMPLE

Look up the ARN format for a resource

The exact format of an ARN depends on the service and resource type. Some resource ARNs can include a path, a variable, or a wildcard. To look up the ARN format for a specific AWS resource, open the Service Authorization Reference, open the page for the service, and navigate to the resource types table.

Paths in ARNs

Resource ARNs can include a path. For example, in Amazon S3, the resource identifier is an object name that can include forward slashes (/) to form a path. Similarly, IAM user names and group names can include paths. Only alphanumeric characters and the following characters are allowed in IAM paths: forward slash (/), plus (+), equals (=), comma (,), period (.), at (@), underscore (_), and hyphen (-).

Using wildcards in paths

Paths can include a wildcard character, namely an asterisk (*). For example, if you are writing an IAM policy, you can specify all IAM users that have the path product_1234 using a wildcard as follows:

arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/Development/product_1234/*

Similarly, you can specify user/* to mean all users or group/* to mean all groups, as in the following examples:

"Resource":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/*"
"Resource":"arn:aws:iam::123456789012:group/*"

The following example shows ARNs for an Amazon S3 bucket in which the resource name includes a path:

arn:aws:s3:::my_corporate_bucket/*
arn:aws:s3:::my-corporate-bucket/Development/*

Incorrect wildcard usage

You cannot use a wildcard in the portion of the ARN that specifies the resource type, such as the term user in an IAM ARN. For example, the following is not allowed.

arn:aws:iam::123456789012:u*   <== not allowed