Using roles to share entitlements for AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace uses AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to AWS Marketplace. Service-linked roles are predefined by AWS Marketplace and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes setting up AWS Marketplace easier because you don't have to add the necessary permissions manually. AWS Marketplace defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only AWS Marketplace can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy. That permissions policy can't be attached to any other IAM entity.

To share your AWS Marketplace subscriptions to other accounts in your AWS organization with AWS License Manager, you must give AWS Marketplace permissions for each account you want to share with. Do this by using the AWSServiceRoleForMarketplaceLicenseManagement role. See Creating a service-linked role for AWS Marketplace for more details.

For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see AWS services that work with IAM, and look for the services with Yes in the Service-linked roles column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForMarketplaceLicenseManagement. This role provides AWS Marketplace with permissions to create and manage licenses in AWS License Manager for the products that you subscribe to in AWS Marketplace.

The AWSServiceRoleForMarketplaceLicenseManagement service-linked role trusts the following service to perform actions in License Manager on your behalf:

• license-management.marketplace.amazonaws.com

The role permissions policy named AWSMarketplaceLicenseManagementServiceRolePolicy allows AWS Marketplace to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

• Actions:

  • "organizations:DescribeOrganization"

  • "license-manager:ListReceivedGrants"

  • "license-manager:ListDistributedGrants"

  • "license-manager:GetGrant"

  • "license-manager:CreateGrant"

  • "license-manager:CreateGrantVersion"

  • "license-manager:DeleteGrant"

  • "license-manager:AcceptGrant"

• Resources:

  • All resources ("*")

You must configure permissions to allow an IAM entity (such as a user, group, or role) to create, edit, or delete a service-linked role. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions in the IAM User Guide.

Creating a service-linked role for AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace creates the service-linked role for you when you set up integration with AWS License Manager.

You can specify that AWS Marketplace create the service-linked role for all accounts in your organization at once, or you can create the service-linked role for one account at a time. The option to create service-linked roles across all accounts is only available if your organization has All features enabled. For more details, see Enabling all features in your organization in the AWS Organizations User Guide.

To create service-linked roles across all accounts

1. In AWS Marketplace console, sign in and choose Settings.

2. In the AWS Organizations integration section, select Create integration.

3. On the Create AWS Organizations integration page, select Enable trusted access across your organization, then choose Create integration.

   Note

   This setting enables trust within AWS Organizations. As a result, in addition to the current action, future accounts that are added to the organization have the service-linked role added automatically.

To create service-linked roles for the current account

1. In AWS Marketplace console, sign in and choose Settings.

2. In the AWS Organizations integration section, select Configure integration.

3. On the Create AWS Organizations integration page, select AWS Marketplace license management service-linked role for this Account, then choose Create integration.

Important

If you choose to create the service-linked role only for the current account, it does not enable trusted access across your organization. You must repeat these steps for each account that wants to share (giving or receiving) licenses in AWS Marketplace. This includes accounts that are added to the organization in the future.

Editing a service-linked role for AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace doesn't allow you to edit the service-linked role. After you create a service-linked role, you cannot change the name of the role because various entities might reference the role. However, you can edit the description of the role using IAM. For more information, see Editing a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Deleting a service-linked role for AWS Marketplace

If you no longer need to use a feature or service that requires a service-linked role, we recommend that you delete that role. That way you don’t have an unused entity that is not actively monitored or maintained. However, you must clean up the resources for your service-linked role before you can manually delete it.

Note

If the AWS Marketplace service is using the role when you try to delete the resources, then the deletion might fail. If that happens, wait for a few minutes and try the operation again.

To manually delete the service-linked role using IAM

Use the IAM console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForMarketplaceLicenseManagement service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a Service-Linked Role in the IAM User Guide .

Supported Regions for AWS Marketplace service-linked roles

AWS Marketplace supports using service-linked roles in all of the AWS Regions where the service is available. For more information, see AWS Marketplace Regions and Endpoints.