Using Service-Linked Roles for Neptune

Amazon Neptune 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 Neptune. Service-linked roles are predefined by Neptune and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.

Important

For certain management features, Amazon Neptune uses operational technology that is shared with Amazon RDS. This includes the service-linked role and management API permissions.

A service-linked role makes using Neptune easier because you don’t have to manually add the necessary permissions. Neptune defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only Neptune can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy cannot be attached to any other IAM entity.

You can delete the roles only after first deleting their related resources. This protects your Neptune resources because you can't inadvertently remove permission to access the resources.

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

Service-Linked Role Permissions for Neptune

Neptune uses the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role to allow Neptune and Amazon RDS to call AWS services on behalf of your database instances. The AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role trusts the rds.amazonaws.com service to assume the role.

The role permissions policy allows Neptune to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

• Actions on ec2:

  • AssignPrivateIpAddresses

  • AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress

  • CreateNetworkInterface

  • CreateSecurityGroup

  • DeleteNetworkInterface

  • DeleteSecurityGroup

  • DescribeAvailabilityZones

  • DescribeInternetGateways

  • DescribeSecurityGroups

  • DescribeSubnets

  • DescribeVpcAttribute

  • DescribeVpcs

  • ModifyNetworkInterfaceAttribute

  • RevokeSecurityGroupIngress

  • UnassignPrivateIpAddresses

• Actions on sns:

  • ListTopic

  • Publish

• Actions on cloudwatch:

  • PutMetricData

  • GetMetricData

  • CreateLogStream

  • PullLogEvents

  • DescribeLogStreams

  • CreateLogGroup

Note

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. You might encounter the following error message:

Unable to create the resource. Verify that you have permission to create service linked role. Otherwise wait and try again later.

If you see this message, make sure that you have the following permissions enabled:

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/rds.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForRDS",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}

For more information, see Service-Linked Role Permissions in the IAM User Guide.

Creating a Service-Linked Role for Neptune

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you create an instance or a cluster, Neptune creates the service-linked role for you.

Important

To learn more, see A New Role Appeared in My IAM Account in the IAM User Guide.

If you delete this service-linked role and then need to create it again, you can use the same process to re-create the role in your account. When you create an instance or a cluster, Neptune creates the service-linked role for you again.

Editing a Service-Linked Role for Neptune

Neptune does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForRDS 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 Neptune

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 delete all of your instances and clusters before you can delete the associated service-linked role.

Cleaning Up a Service-Linked Role Before Deleting

Before you can use IAM to delete a service-linked role, you must first confirm that the role has no active sessions and remove any resources used by the role.

To check whether the service-linked role has an active session in the IAM console

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

2. In the navigation pane of the IAM console, choose Roles. Then choose the name (not the check box) of the AWSServiceRoleForRDS role.

3. On the Summary page for the selected role, choose the Access Advisor tab.

4. On the Access Advisor tab, review recent activity for the service-linked role.

   Note

   If you are unsure whether Neptune is using the AWSServiceRoleForRDS role, you can try to delete the role. If the service is using the role, then the deletion fails and you can view the Regions where the role is being used. If the role is being used, then you must wait for the session to end before you can delete the role. You cannot revoke the session for a service-linked role.

If you want to remove the AWSServiceRoleForRDS role, you must first delete all of your instances and clusters.

Deleting All of Your Instances

Use one of these procedures to delete each of your instances.

To delete an instance (console)

1. Open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Instances.

3. In the Instances list, choose the instance that you want to delete.

4. Choose Instance actions, and then choose Delete.

5. If you are prompted for Create final Snapshot?, choose Yes or No.

6. If you chose Yes in the previous step, for Final snapshot name enter the name of your final snapshot.

7. Choose Delete.

To delete an instance (AWS CLI)

See delete-db-instance in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

To delete an instance (API)

See DeleteDBInstance.

Deleting All of Your Clusters

Use one of the following procedures to delete a single cluster, and then repeat the procedure for each of your clusters.

To delete a cluster (console)

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console, and open the Amazon Neptune console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/neptune/home.

2. In the Clusters list, choose the cluster that you want to delete.

3. Choose Cluster Actions, and then choose Delete.

4. Choose Delete.

To delete a cluster (CLI)

See delete-db-cluster in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

To delete a cluster (API)

See DeleteDBCluster

You can use the IAM console, the IAM CLI, or the IAM API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a Service-Linked Role in the IAM User Guide.