Identity-based policy examples for AWS IoT Greengrass - AWS IoT Greengrass

AWS IoT Greengrass Version 1 entered the extended life phase on June 30, 2023. For more information, see the AWS IoT Greengrass V1 maintenance policy. After this date, AWS IoT Greengrass V1 won't release updates that provide features, enhancements, bug fixes, or security patches. Devices that run on AWS IoT Greengrass V1 won't be disrupted and will continue to operate and to connect to the cloud. We strongly recommend that you migrate to AWS IoT Greengrass Version 2, which adds significant new features and support for additional platforms.

Identity-based policy examples for AWS IoT Greengrass

By default, IAM users and roles don't have permission to create or modify AWS IoT Greengrass resources. They also can't perform tasks using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS API. An IAM administrator must create IAM policies that grant users and roles permission to perform specific API operations on the specified resources they need. The administrator must then attach those policies to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete AWS IoT Greengrass 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.

AWS managed policies for AWS IoT Greengrass

AWS IoT Greengrass maintains the following AWS managed policies that you can use to grant permissions to IAM users and roles.

Policy

Description

AWSGreengrassFullAccess

Allows all AWS IoT Greengrass actions for all of your AWS resources. This policy is recommended for AWS IoT Greengrass service administrators or testing purposes.

AWSGreengrassReadOnlyAccess

Allows List and Get AWS IoT Greengrass actions for all of your AWS resources.

AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy

Allows access to resources from AWS services including AWS Lambda and AWS IoT Device Shadow. This is the default policy used for the Greengrass service role. This policy is designed to provide general ease of access. You can define a custom policy that is more restrictive.

GreengrassOTAUpdateArtifactAccess

Allows read-only access to over-the-air (OTA) update artifacts for the AWS IoT Greengrass Core software in all AWS Regions.

Policy examples

The following example customer-defined policies grant permissions for common scenarios.

To learn how to create an IAM identity-based policy using these example JSON policy documents, see Creating policies on the JSON tab 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": "*" } ] }