Fine-grained access to databases and tables in the AWS Glue Data Catalog - Amazon Athena
LimitationsAWS Glue access to your catalog and database per AWS RegionTable partitions and versions in AWS GlueExamples of fine-grained permissions to tables and databases

Fine-grained access to databases and tables in the AWS Glue Data Catalog

If you use the AWS Glue Data Catalog with Amazon Athena, you can define resource-level policies for the database and table Data Catalog objects that are used in Athena.

Note

The term "fine-grained access control" here refers to database and table level security. For information about column-, row-, and cell-level security, see Data filtering and cell-level security in Lake Formation.

You define resource-level permissions in IAM identity-based policies.

Important

This section discusses resource-level permissions in IAM identity-based policies. These are different from resource-based policies. For more information about the differences, see Identity-based policies and resource-based policies in the IAM User Guide.

See the following topics for these tasks:

To perform this task See the following topic
Create an IAM policy that defines fine-grained access to resources Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.
Learn about IAM identity-based policies used in AWS Glue Identity-based policies (IAM policies) in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

In this section

Limitations

Consider the following limitations when using fine-grained access control with the AWS Glue Data Catalog and Athena:

  • IAM Identity Center enabled Athena workgroups require Lake Formation be configured to use IAM Identity Center identities. For more information, see Integrating IAM Identity Center in the AWS Lake Formation Developer Guide.

  • You can limit access only to databases and tables. Fine-grained access controls apply at the table level and you cannot limit access to individual partitions within a table. For more information, see Table partitions and versions in AWS Glue.

  • The AWS Glue Data Catalog contains the following resources: CATALOG, DATABASE, TABLE, and FUNCTION.

    Note

    From this list, resources that are common between Athena and the AWS Glue Data Catalog are TABLE, DATABASE, and CATALOG for each account. Function is specific to AWS Glue. For delete actions in Athena, you must include permissions to AWS Glue actions. See Examples of fine-grained permissions to tables and databases.

    The hierarchy is as follows: CATALOG is an ancestor of all DATABASES in each account, and each DATABASE is an ancestor for all of its TABLES and FUNCTIONS. For example, for a table named table_test that belongs to a database db in the catalog in your account, its ancestors are db and the catalog in your account. For the db database, its ancestor is the catalog in your account, and its descendants are tables and functions. For more information about the hierarchical structure of resources, see List of ARNs in Data Catalog in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

  • For any non-delete Athena action on a resource, such as CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, SHOW DATABASE, SHOW TABLE, or ALTER TABLE, you need permissions to call this action on the resource (table or database) and all ancestors of the resource in the Data Catalog. For example, for a table, its ancestors are the database to which it belongs, and the catalog for the account. For a database, its ancestor is the catalog for the account. See Examples of fine-grained permissions to tables and databases.

  • For a delete action in Athena, such as DROP DATABASE or DROP TABLE, you also need permissions to call the delete action on all ancestors and descendants of the resource in the Data Catalog. For example, to delete a database you need permissions on the database, the catalog, which is its ancestor, and all the tables and user defined functions, which are its descendents. A table does not have descendants. To run DROP TABLE, you need permissions to this action on the table, the database to which it belongs, and the catalog. See Examples of fine-grained permissions to tables and databases.

AWS Glue access to your catalog and database per AWS Region

For Athena to work with the AWS Glue, a policy that grants access to your database and to the AWS Glue Data Catalog in your account per AWS Region is required. To create databases, the CreateDatabase permission is also required. In the following example policy, replace the AWS Region, AWS account ID, and database name with those of your own.

{
   "Sid": "DatabasePermissions",
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase", 
      "glue:GetDatabases",
      "glue:CreateDatabase"
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/default"
   ]
}

Table partitions and versions in AWS Glue

In AWS Glue, tables can have partitions and versions. Table versions and partitions are not considered to be independent resources in AWS Glue. Access to table versions and partitions is given by granting access on the table and ancestor resources for the table.

For the purposes of fine-grained access control, the following access permissions apply:

  • Fine-grained access controls apply at the table level. You can limit access only to databases and tables. For example, if you allow access to a partitioned table, this access applies to all partitions in the table. You cannot limit access to individual partitions within a table.

    Important

    To run actions in AWS Glue on partitions, permissions for partition actions are required at the catalog, database, and table levels. Having access to partitions within a table is not sufficient. For example, to run GetPartitions on table myTable in the database myDB, you must grant permissions for glue:GetPartitions to the catalog, myDB database, and myTable resources.

  • Fine-grained access controls do not apply to table versions. As with partitions, access to previous versions of a table is granted through access to the table version APIs in AWS Glue on the table, and to the table ancestors.

For information about permissions on AWS Glue actions, see AWS Glue API permissions: Actions and resources reference in the AWS Glue Developer Guide.

Examples of fine-grained permissions to tables and databases

The following table lists examples of IAM identity-based policies that allow fine-grained access to databases and tables in Athena. We recommend that you start with these examples and, depending on your needs, adjust them to allow or deny specific actions to particular databases and tables.

These examples include access to databases and catalogs so that Athena and AWS Glue can work together. For multiple AWS Regions, include similar policies for each of your databases and catalogs, one line for each Region.

In the examples, replace the example_db database and test table with your own database and table names.

DDL statement Example of an IAM access policy granting access to the resource
ALTER DATABASE Allows you to modify the properties for the example_db database.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase", 
      "glue:UpdateDatabase"
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db"
   ]
}
CREATE DATABASE Allows you to create the database named example_db.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase", 
      "glue:CreateDatabase"
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db"
   ]
}
CREATE TABLE Allows you to create a table named test in the example_db database.
{
   "Sid": "DatabasePermissions",
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase", 
      "glue:GetDatabases"
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db"
   ]
},
{
   "Sid": "TablePermissions",
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetTables",
      "glue:GetTable",
      "glue:GetPartitions",
      "glue:CreateTable"
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/example_db/test"
   ]
}
DROP DATABASE Allows you to drop the example_db database, including all tables in it.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase",
      "glue:DeleteDatabase",
      "glue:GetTables", 
      "glue:GetTable", 
      "glue:DeleteTable" 
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db", 
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/example_db/*", 
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:userDefinedFunction/example_db/*"
   ]
 }
DROP TABLE Allows you to drop a partitioned table named test in the example_db database. If your table does not have partitions, do not include partition actions.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase",
      "glue:GetTable",
      "glue:DeleteTable", 
      "glue:GetPartitions",
      "glue:GetPartition",
      "glue:DeletePartition" 
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db", 
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/example_db/test"
   ]
 }
MSCK REPAIR TABLE Allows you to update catalog metadata after you add Hive compatible partitions to the table named test in the example_db database.
{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
        "glue:GetDatabase",
        "glue:CreateDatabase",
        "glue:GetTable",
        "glue:GetPartitions",
        "glue:GetPartition",
        "glue:BatchCreatePartition"
    ],
    "Resource": [
      "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
      "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db", 
      "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/example_db/test"
    ]
}
SHOW DATABASES Allows you to list all databases in the AWS Glue Data Catalog.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase",
      "glue:GetDatabases" 
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/*"
   ]
 }
SHOW TABLES Allows you to list all tables in the example_db database.
{
   "Effect": "Allow",
   "Action": [
      "glue:GetDatabase",
      "glue:GetTables"    
   ],
   "Resource": [
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:catalog",
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:database/example_db",  
     "arn:aws:glue:us-east-1:123456789012:table/example_db/*"
   ]
}