Setting up your AWS account - AWS Identity and Access Management

Setting up your AWS account

Before you start working with IAM, make sure you have completed the initial set up of your AWS environment.

If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.

To sign up for an AWS account

  1. Open https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup.

  2. Follow the online instructions.

    Part of the sign-up procedure involves receiving a phone call and entering a verification code on the phone keypad.

    When you sign up for an AWS account, an AWS account root user is created. The root user has access to all AWS services and resources in the account. As a security best practice, assign administrative access to a user, and use only the root user to perform tasks that require root user access.

AWS sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to https://aws.amazon.com/ and choosing My Account.

When you signed up for the service, you created an AWS account using an email address and a password. Those are your AWS root user credentials. As a best practice, you don't use your root user credentials to access AWS for daily tasks. Only use your root user credentials to perform tasks that require root user credentials. Also, do not share your credentials with anyone else. Instead, add people to your directory and give them access to your AWS account.

To secure your AWS account root user

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as the account owner by choosing Root user and entering your AWS account email address. On the next page, enter your password.

    For help signing in by using root user, see Signing in as the root user in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.

  2. Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your root user.

    For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for your AWS account root user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

Grant access to the billing console

IAM users and roles in an AWS account can't access the Billing and Cost Management console by default. This is true even if they have IAM policies that grant access to certain Billing features. To grant access, the AWS account root user must first activate IAM access.

Note

As a security best practice, we recommend that you provide access to your resources through identity federation with AWS IAM Identity Center. When you enable IAM Identity Center in conjunction with AWS Organizations, the Billing and Cost Management console is enabled by default with consolidated billing for all AWS accounts in your organization. For more information, see Consolidating billing for AWS Organizations in the Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console with your root user credentials (specifically, the email address and password that you used to create your AWS account).

  2. On the navigation bar, select your account name, and then select Account.

  3. Scroll down the page until you find the section IAM User and Role Access to Billing Information, then select Edit.

  4. Select the Activate IAM Access check box to activate access to the Billing and Cost Management console pages.

  5. Choose Update.

    The page displays the message IAM user/role access to billing information is activated.

    Important

    Activating IAM access alone doesn't grant any permissions for users or roles to view the Billing and Cost Management console pages. You must also attach the required identity-based policies to IAM roles to grant access to the billing console. Roles provide temporary credentials that users can assume when needed.

  6. Use the AWS Management Console to create a role that a user can assume to access the billing console.

  7. On the Add permissions page for the role, add permissions to list and view details about the Billing resources in your AWS account.

    The AWS managed policy Billing grants users permission to view and edit the Billing and Cost Management console. This includes viewing account usage, modifying budgets and payment methods. For more policy examples that you can attach to IAM roles to control access to your account’s billing information, see AWS Billing policy examples in the Billing and Cost Management User Guide.

To create a user with administrative access

  1. Enable IAM Identity Center.

    For instructions, see Enabling AWS IAM Identity Center in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

  2. In IAM Identity Center, grant administrative access to a user.

    For a tutorial about using the IAM Identity Center directory as your identity source, see Configure user access with the default IAM Identity Center directory in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

Sign in as the user with administrative access

  • To sign in with your IAM Identity Center user, use the sign-in URL that was sent to your email address when you created the IAM Identity Center user.

    For help signing in using an IAM Identity Center user, see Signing in to the AWS access portal in the AWS Sign-In User Guide.

Assign access to additional users

  1. In IAM Identity Center, create a permission set that follows the best practice of applying least-privilege permissions.

    For instructions, see Create a permission set in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

  2. Assign users to a group, and then assign single sign-on access to the group.

    For instructions, see Add groups in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.