Manage the service role (console)Manage the service role (CLI)See also

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.

Greengrass service role

The Greengrass service role is an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service role that authorizes AWS IoT Greengrass to access resources from AWS services on your behalf. This makes it possible for AWS IoT Greengrass to perform essential tasks, such as retrieving your AWS Lambda functions and managing AWS IoT shadows.

To allow AWS IoT Greengrass to access your resources, the Greengrass service role must be associated with your AWS account and specify AWS IoT Greengrass as a trusted entity. The role must include the AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy managed policy or a custom policy that defines equivalent permissions for the AWS IoT Greengrass features that you use. This policy is maintained by AWS and defines the set of permissions that AWS IoT Greengrass uses to access your AWS resources.

You can reuse the same Greengrass service role across AWS Regions, but you must associate it with your account in every AWS Region where you use AWS IoT Greengrass. Group deployment fails if the service role doesn't exist in the current AWS account and Region.

The following sections describe how to create and manage the Greengrass service role in the AWS Management Console or AWS CLI.

Manage the service role (console)
Manage the service role (CLI)

Note

In addition to the service role that authorizes service-level access, you can assign a group role to an AWS IoT Greengrass group. The group role is a separate IAM role that controls how Greengrass Lambda functions and connectors in the group can access AWS services.

Managing the Greengrass service role (console)

The AWS IoT console makes it easy to manage your Greengrass service role. For example, when you create or deploy a Greengrass group, the console checks whether your AWS account is attached to a Greengrass service role in the AWS Region that's currently selected in the console. If not, the console can create and configure a service role for you. For more information, see Create the Greengrass service role (console).

You can use the AWS IoT console for the following role management tasks:

Find your Greengrass service role
Create the Greengrass service role
Change the Greengrass service role
Detach the Greengrass service role

Note

The user who is signed in to the console must have permissions to view, create, or change the service role.

Find your Greengrass service role (console)

Use the following steps to find the service role that AWS IoT Greengrass is using in the current AWS Region.

From the AWS IoT console navigation pane, choose Settings.
Scroll to the Greengrass service role section to see your service role and its policies.

If you don't see a service role, you can let the console create or configure one for you. For more information, see Create the Greengrass service role.

Create the Greengrass service role (console)

The console can create and configure a default Greengrass service role for you. This role has the following properties.

Property	Value
Name	`Greengrass_ServiceRole`
Trusted entity	`AWS service: greengrass`
Policy	AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy

Note

If Greengrass device setup creates the service role, the role name is GreengrassServiceRole_random-string.

When you create or deploy a Greengrass group from the AWS IoT console, the console checks whether a Greengrass service role is associated with your AWS account in the AWS Region that's currently selected in the console. If not, the console prompts you to allow AWS IoT Greengrass to read and write to AWS services on your behalf.

If you grant permission, the console checks whether a role named Greengrass_ServiceRole exists in your AWS account.

If the role exists, the console attaches the service role to your AWS account in the current AWS Region.
If the role doesn't exist, the console creates a default Greengrass service role and attaches it to your AWS account in the current AWS Region.

Note

If you want to create a service role with custom role policies, use the IAM console to create or modify the role. For more information, see Creating a role to delegate permissions to an AWS service or Modifying a role in the IAM User Guide. Make sure that the role grants permissions that are equivalent to the AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy managed policy for the features and resources that you use. We recommend that you also include the aws:SourceArn and aws:SourceAccount global condition context keys in your trust policy to help prevent the confused deputy security problem. The condition context keys restrict access to allow only those requests that come from the specified account and Greengrass workspace. For more information about the confused deputy problem, see Cross-service confused deputy prevention.

If you create a service role, return to the AWS IoT console and attach the role to the group. You can do this under Greengrass service role on the group's Settings page.

Change the Greengrass service role (console)

Use the following procedure to choose a different Greengrass service role to attach to your AWS account in the AWS Region currently selected in the console.

From the AWS IoT console navigation pane, choose Settings.
Under Greengrass service role, choose Change role.

The Update Greengrass service role dialog box opens and shows the IAM roles in your AWS account that define AWS IoT Greengrass as a trusted entity.
Choose the Greengrass service role to attach.
Choose Attach role.

Note

To allow the console to create a default Greengrass service role for you, choose Create role for me instead of choosing a role from the list. The Create role for me link does not appear if a role named Greengrass_ServiceRole is in your AWS account.

Detach the Greengrass service role (console)

Use the following procedure to detach the Greengrass service role from your AWS account in the AWS Region currently selected in the console. This revokes permissions for AWS IoT Greengrass to access AWS services in the current AWS Region.

Important

Detaching the service role might interrupt active operations.

From the AWS IoT console navigation pane, choose Settings.
Under Greengrass service role, choose Detach role.
In the confirmation dialog box, choose Detach.

Note

If you no longer need the role, you can delete it in the IAM console. For more information, see Deleting roles or instance profiles in the IAM User Guide.

Other roles might allow AWS IoT Greengrass to access your resources. To find all roles that allow AWS IoT Greengrass to assume permissions on your behalf, in the IAM console, on the Roles page, look for roles that include AWS service: greengrass in the Trusted entities column.

Managing the Greengrass service role (CLI)

In the following procedures, we assume that the AWS CLI is installed and configured to use your AWS account ID. For more information, see Installing the AWS command line interface and Configuring the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

You can use the AWS CLI for the following role management tasks:

Get your Greengrass service role
Create the Greengrass service role
Remove the Greengrass service role

Get the Greengrass service role (CLI)

Use the following procedure to find out if a Greengrass service role is associated with your AWS account in an AWS Region.

Get the service role. Replace region with your AWS Region (for example, us-west-2).
```
aws Greengrass get-service-role-for-account --region region
```
If a Greengrass service role is already associated with your account, the following role metadata is returned.
```
{
  "AssociatedAt": "timestamp",
  "RoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::account-id:role/path/role-name"
}
```
If no role metadata is returned, then you must create the service role (if it doesn't exist) and associate it with your account in the AWS Region.

Create the Greengrass service role (CLI)

Use the following steps to create a role and associate it with your AWS account.

To create the service role using IAM

Create the role with a trust policy that allows AWS IoT Greengrass to assume the role. This example creates a role named Greengrass_ServiceRole, but you can use a different name. We recommend that you also include the aws:SourceArn and aws:SourceAccount global condition context keys in your trust policy to help prevent the confused deputy security problem. The condition context keys restrict access to allow only those requests that come from the specified account and Greengrass workspace. For more information about the confused deputy problem, see Cross-service confused deputy prevention.

Copy the role ARN from the role metadata in the output. You use the ARN to associate the role with your account.

Attach the AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy policy to the role.


aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name Greengrass_ServiceRole --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy

To associate the service role with your AWS account

Associate the role with your account. Replace role-arn with the service role ARN and region with your AWS Region (for example, us-west-2).
```
aws greengrass associate-service-role-to-account --role-arn role-arn --region region
```
If successful, the following response is returned.
```
{
  "AssociatedAt": "timestamp"
}
```

Remove the Greengrass service role (CLI)

Use the following steps to disassociate the Greengrass service role from your AWS account.

Disassociate the service role from your account. Replace region with your AWS Region (for example, us-west-2).
```
aws greengrass disassociate-service-role-from-account --region region
```
If successful, the following response is returned.
```
{
  "DisassociatedAt": "timestamp"
}
```
Note
You should delete the service role if you're not using it in any AWS Region. First use delete-role-policy to detach the AWSGreengrassResourceAccessRolePolicy managed policy from the role, and then use delete-role to delete the role. For more information, see Deleting roles or instance profiles in the IAM User Guide.