Amazon Kendra Identity-based policy examples

By default, users and roles don't have permission to create or modify Amazon Kendra 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 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.

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies determine whether someone can create, access, or delete Amazon Kendra 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 (Predefined) Polices for Amazon Kendra

AWS addresses many common use cases by providing standalone IAM policies that are created and administered by AWS. These policies are called AWS managed policies. AWS managed policies make it easier for you to assign permissions to users, groups, and roles than if you had to write the policies yourself. For more information, see Adding Permissions to a User in the IAM User Guide.

The following AWS managed policies, which you can attach to groups and roles in your account, are specific to Amazon Kendra:

• AmazonKendraReadOnly — Grants read-only access to Amazon Kendra resources.

• AmazonKendraFullAccess — Grants full access to create, read, update, delete, tag, and run all Amazon Kendra resources.

For the console, your role must also have iam:CreateRole, iam:CreatePolicy, iam:AttachRolePolicy, and s3:ListBucket permissions.

Note

You can review these permissions by signing in to the IAM console and searching for specific policies.

You can also create your own custom policies to allow permissions for Amazon Kendra API actions. You can attach these custom policies to the IAM roles or groups that require those permissions. For examples of IAM policies for Amazon Kendra, see Amazon Kendra Identity-based policy examples.

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 one Amazon Kendra index

In this example, you want to grant an user in your AWS account access to query an index.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "QueryIndex",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kendra:Query"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:kendra:${Region}:${Account}:index/${Index ID}"
        }
    ]
}

Tag-based policy examples

Tag-based policies are JSON policy documents that specify the actions that a principal can perform on tagged resources.

Example: Use a tag to access a resource

This example policy grants a user or role in your AWS account permission to use the Query operation with any resource tagged with the key department and the value finance.

{ 
    "Version": "2012-10-17", 
    "Statement": [ 
        { 
            "Effect": "Allow", 
            "Action": [ 
                "kendra:Query" 
            ], 
            "Resource": "*", 
            "Condition": { 
                "StringEquals": { 
                    "aws:ResourceTag/department": "finance" 
                } 
            } 
        } 
   ]
}

Example: Use a tag to activate Amazon Kendra operations

This example policy grants a user or role in your AWS account permission to use any Amazon Kendra operation except TagResource operation with any resource tagged with the key department and the value finance.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "kendra:*",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Action": [
                "kendra:TagResource"
            ],
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "aws:ResourceTag/department": "finance"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Example: Use a tag to restrict access to an operation

This example policy restricts access for a user or role in your AWS account to use the CreateIndex operation unless the user provides the department tag and it has the allowed values finance and IT.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "kendra:CreateIndex",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Action": "kendra:CreateIndex",
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "Null": {
                    "aws:RequestTag/department": "true"
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Action": "kendra:CreateIndex",
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "ForAnyValue:StringNotEquals": {
                    "aws:RequestTag/department": [
                        "finance",
                        "IT"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}