AWS Health identity-based policy examples
By default, IAM users and roles don't have permission to create or modify AWS Health 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.
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.
Topics
Policy best practices
Identity-based policies are very powerful. They determine whether someone can create, access, or delete AWS Health 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 using AWS managed policies – To start using AWS Health quickly, use AWS managed policies to give your employees the permissions they need. These policies are already available in your account and are maintained and updated by AWS. For more information, see Get started using permissions with AWS managed policies in the IAM User Guide.
-
Grant least privilege – When you create custom policies, grant only the permissions required to perform a task. Start with a minimum set of permissions and grant additional permissions as necessary. Doing so is more secure than starting with permissions that are too lenient and then trying to tighten them later. For more information, see Grant least privilege in the IAM User Guide.
-
Enable MFA for sensitive operations – For extra security, require IAM users to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access sensitive resources or API operations. For more information, see Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) in AWS in the IAM User Guide.
-
Use policy conditions for extra security – To the extent that it's practical, define the conditions under which your identity-based policies allow access to a resource. For example, you can write conditions to specify a range of allowable IP addresses that a request must come from. You can also write conditions to allow requests only within a specified date or time range, or to require the use of SSL or MFA. For more information, see IAM JSON policy elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.
Using the AWS Health console
To access the AWS Health console, you must have a minimum set of permissions. These permissions must allow you to list and view details about the AWS Health resources in your AWS account. If you create an identity-based policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for entities (IAM users or roles) with that policy.
To ensure that those entities can still use the AWS Health console, you can
attach the following AWS managed policy, AWSHealthFullAccess
The AWSHealthFullAccess
policy grants an entity full access to the
following:
-
Enable or disable the AWS Health organizational view feature for all accounts in an AWS organization
-
The AWS Health Dashboard in the AWS Health console
-
AWS Health API operations and notifications
-
View information about accounts that are part of your AWS organization
-
View the organizational units (OU) of the management account
Example : AWSHealthFullAccess
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "organizations:EnableAWSServiceAccess", "organizations:DisableAWSServiceAccess" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "organizations:ServicePrincipal": "health.amazonaws.com" } } }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "health:*", "organizations:DescribeAccount", "organizations:ListAccounts", "organizations:ListDelegatedAdministrators", "organizations:ListParents" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole", "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "iam:AWSServiceName": "health.amazonaws.com" } } } ] }
You can also use the AWS managed role,
Health_OrganizationsServiceRolePolicy
so that AWS Health can view
events for other accounts in your organization. For more information, see Using service-linked roles for
AWS Health.
You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the AWS CLI or the AWS API. Instead, allow access to only the actions that match the API operation that you're trying to perform.
For more information, see Adding Permissions to a User 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": "*" } ] }
Accessing the AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health API
The AWS Health Dashboard is available for all AWS accounts. The AWS Health API is available only
to accounts with a Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, or Enterprise Support plan. For more information, see AWS Support
You can use IAM to create entities (users, groups, or roles), and then give those entities permissions to access the AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health API.
By default, IAM users don't have access to the AWS Health Dashboard or the AWS Health API. You give users access to your account's AWS Health information by attaching IAM policies to a single user, a group of users, or a role. For more information, see Identities (Users, Groups, and Roles) and Overview of IAM Policies.
After you create IAM users, you can give those users individual passwords. Then, they can sign in to your account and view AWS Health information by using an account-specific sign-in page. For more information, see How Users Sign In to Your Account.
An IAM user with permissions to view AWS Health Dashboard has read-only access to health information across all AWS services on the account, which can include, but is not limited to, AWS resource IDs such as Amazon EC2 instance IDs, EC2 instance IP addresses, and general security notifications.
For example, if an IAM policy grants access only to AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health API, then the user or role that the policy applies to can access all information posted about AWS services and related resources, even if other IAM policies don't allow that access.
You can use two groups of APIs for AWS Health.
-
Individual accounts – You can use the operations such as DescribeEvents and DescribeEventDetails to get information about AWS Health events for your account.
-
Organizational account – You can use operations such as DescribeEventsForOrganization and DescribeEventDetailsForOrganization to get information about AWS Health events for accounts that are part of your organization.
For more information about the available API operations, see the AWS Health API Reference.
Individual actions
You can set the Action
element of an IAM policy to
health:Describe*
. This allows access to the AWS Health Dashboard and AWS Health.
AWS Health supports access control to events based on the eventTypeCode
and service.
Describe access
This policy statement grants access to AWS Health Dashboard and any of the
Describe*
AWS Health API operations. For example, an IAM user
with this policy can access the AWS Health Dashboard in the AWS Management Console and call the AWS Health
DescribeEvents
API operation.
Example : Describe access
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "health:Describe*" ], "Resource": "*" }] }
Deny access
This policy statement denies access to AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health API. An IAM user with this policy can't view the AWS Health Dashboard in the AWS Management Console and can't call any of the AWS Health API operations.
Example : Deny access
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "health:*" ], "Resource": "*" }] }
Organizational view
If you want to enable organizational view for AWS Health, you must allow access to the AWS Health and AWS Organizations actions.
The Action
element of an IAM policy must include the following
permissions:
-
iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole
-
organizations:EnableAWSServiceAccess
-
organizations:DescribeAccount
-
organizations:DisableAWSServiceAccess
-
organizations:ListAccounts
-
organizations:ListDelegatedAdministrators
-
organizations:ListParents
To understand the exact permissions needed for each APIs, see Actions Defined by AWS Health APIs and Notifications in the IAM User Guide.
You must use credentials from the management account for an organization to access the AWS Health APIs for AWS Organizations. For more information, see Aggregating AWS Health events across accounts with organizational view.
Allow access to AWS Health organizational view
This policy statement grants access to all AWS Health and AWS Organizations actions that you need for the organizational view feature.
Example : Allow AWS Health organizational view access
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "organizations:EnableAWSServiceAccess", "organizations:DisableAWSServiceAccess" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "organizations:ServicePrincipal": "health.amazonaws.com" } } }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "health:*", "organizations:DescribeAccount", "organizations:ListAccounts", "organizations:ListDelegatedAdministrators", "organizations:ListParents" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole", "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/health.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForHealth*" } ] }
Deny access to AWS Health organizational view
This policy statement denies access to the AWS Organizations actions but allows access to the AWS Health actions for an individual account.
Example : Deny AWS Health organizational view access
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "health:*" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "organizations:EnableAWSServiceAccess", "organizations:DisableAWSServiceAccess" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "organizations:ServicePrincipal": "health.amazonaws.com" } } }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "organizations:DescribeAccount", "organizations:ListAccounts", "organizations:ListDelegatedAdministrators", "organizations:ListParents" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole", "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/health.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForHealth*" } ] }
If the user or group that you want to give permissions to already has an IAM policy, you can add the AWS Health-specific policy statement to that policy.
Resource- and action-based conditions
AWS Health supports IAM conditions for the DescribeAffectedEntities and DescribeEventDetails API operations. You can use resource- and action-based conditions to restrict events that the AWS Health API sends to a user, group, or role.
To do so, update the Condition
block of the IAM policy or set the
Resource
element. You can use String Conditions to restrict access based on certain AWS Health event
fields.
You can use the following fields when you specify an AWS Health event in your policy:
-
eventTypeCode
-
service
-
The DescribeAffectedEntities and DescribeEventDetails API operations support resource-level permissions. For example, you can create a policy to allow or deny specific AWS Health events.
-
The DescribeAffectedEntitiesForOrganization and DescribeEventDetailsForOrganization API operations don't support resource-level permissions.
-
For more information, see Actions, resources, and condition keys for AWS Health APIs and Notifications in the Service Authorization Reference.
Example : Action-based condition
This policy statement grants access to AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health
Describe*
API operations, but denies access to any AWS Health events
that relate to Amazon EC2.
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "health:Describe*", "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "health:DescribeAffectedEntities", "health:DescribeEventDetails" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "health:service": "EC2" } } } ] }
Example : Resource-based condition
The following policy has the same effect, but uses the Resource
element instead.
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "health:Describe*" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "health:DescribeEventDetails", "health:DescribeAffectedEntities" ], "Resource": "arn:aws:health:*::event/EC2/*/*" }] }
Example : eventTypeCode condition
This policy statement grants access to AWS Health Dashboard and the AWS Health
Describe*
API operations, but denies access to any AWS Health events
with the eventTypeCode
that matches AWS_EC2_*
.
{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "health:Describe*", "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Deny", "Action": [ "health:DescribeAffectedEntities", "health:DescribeEventDetails" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringLike": { "health:eventTypeCode": "AWS_EC2_*" } } } ] }
If you call the DescribeAffectedEntities and DescribeEventDetails operations and don't have permission to access the
AWS Health event, the AccessDeniedException
error appears. For more
information, see Troubleshooting AWS Health identity
and access.