AWS IAM Identity Center and AWS Organizations

AWS IAM Identity Center provides single sign-on access for all of your AWS accounts and cloud applications. It connects with Microsoft Active Directory through AWS Directory Service to allow users in that directory to sign in to a personalized AWS access portal using their existing Active Directory user names and passwords. From the AWS access portal, users have access to all the AWS accounts and cloud applications that they have permissions for.

For more information about IAM Identity Center, see the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

Use the following information to help you integrate AWS IAM Identity Center with AWS Organizations.

Service-linked roles created when you enable integration

The following service-linked role is automatically created in your organization's management account when you enable trusted access. This role allows IAM Identity Center to perform supported operations within your organization's accounts in your organization.

You can delete or modify this role only if you disable trusted access between IAM Identity Center and Organizations, or if you remove the member account from the organization.

• AWSServiceRoleForSSO

Service principals used by the service-linked roles

The service-linked role in the previous section can be assumed only by the service principals authorized by the trust relationships defined for the role. The service-linked roles used by IAM Identity Center grant access to the following service principals:

• sso.amazonaws.com

Enabling trusted access with IAM Identity Center

For information about the permissions needed to enable trusted access, see Permissions required to enable trusted access.

You can enable trusted access using either the AWS IAM Identity Center console or the AWS Organizations console.

Important

We strongly recommend that whenever possible, you use the AWS IAM Identity Center console or tools to enable integration with Organizations. This lets AWS IAM Identity Center perform any configuration that it requires, such as creating resources needed by the service. Proceed with these steps only if you can’t enable integration using the tools provided by AWS IAM Identity Center. For more information, see this note.

If you enable trusted access by using the AWS IAM Identity Center console or tools then you don’t need to complete these steps.

IAM Identity Center requires trusted access with AWS Organizations to function. Trusted access is enabled when you set up IAM Identity Center. For more information, see Getting Started - Step 1: Enable AWS IAM Identity Center in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

You can enable trusted access by using either the AWS Organizations console, by running a AWS CLI command, or by calling an API operation in one of the AWS SDKs.

AWS Management Console

To enable trusted service access using the Organizations console

1. Sign in to the AWS Organizations console. You must sign in as an IAM user, assume an IAM role, or sign in as the root user (not recommended) in the organization’s management account.

2. On the Services page, find the row for AWS IAM Identity Center, choose the service’s name, and then choose Enable trusted access.

3. In the confirmation dialog box, enable Show the option to enable trusted access, enter enable in the box, and then choose Enable trusted access.

4. If you are the administrator of only AWS Organizations, tell the administrator of AWS IAM Identity Center that they can now enable that service using its console to work with AWS Organizations.

AWS CLI, AWS API

To enable trusted service access using the OrganizationsCLI/SDK

You can use the following AWS CLI commands or API operations to enable trusted service access:

• AWS CLI: enable-aws-service-access

  You can run the following command to enable AWS IAM Identity Center as a trusted service with Organizations.

  $ aws organizations enable-aws-service-access \ 
      --service-principal sso.amazonaws.com

  This command produces no output when successful.

• AWS API: EnableAWSServiceAccess

Disabling trusted access with IAM Identity Center

For information about the permissions needed to disable trusted access, see Permissions required to disable trusted access.

IAM Identity Center requires trusted access with AWS Organizations to operate. If you disable trusted access using AWS Organizations while you are using IAM Identity Center, it stops functioning because it can't access the organization. Users can't use IAM Identity Center to access accounts. Any roles that IAM Identity Center creates remain, but the IAM Identity Center service can't access them. The IAM Identity Center service-linked roles remain. If you reenable trusted access, IAM Identity Center continues to operate as before, without the need for you to reconfigure the service.

If you remove an account from your organization, IAM Identity Center automatically cleans up any metadata and resources, such as its service-linked role. A standalone account that is removed from an organization no longer works with IAM Identity Center.

You can disable trusted access using only the Organizations tools.

You can disable trusted access by using either the AWS Organizations console, by running an Organizations AWS CLI command, or by calling an Organizations API operation in one of the AWS SDKs.

AWS Management Console

To disable trusted service access using the Organizations console

1. Sign in to the AWS Organizations console. You must sign in as an IAM user, assume an IAM role, or sign in as the root user (not recommended) in the organization’s management account.

2. On the Services page, find the row for AWS IAM Identity Center and then choose the service’s name.

3. Choose Disable trusted access.

4. In the confirmation dialog box, enter disable in the box, and then choose Disable trusted access.

5. If you are the administrator of only AWS Organizations, tell the administrator of AWS IAM Identity Center that they can now disable that service using its console or tools from working with AWS Organizations.

AWS CLI, AWS API

To disable trusted service access using the Organizations CLI/SDK

You can use the following AWS CLI commands or API operations to disable trusted service access:

• AWS CLI: disable-aws-service-access

  You can run the following command to disable AWS IAM Identity Center as a trusted service with Organizations.

  $ aws organizations disable-aws-service-access \
      --service-principal sso.amazonaws.com

  This command produces no output when successful.

• AWS API: DisableAWSServiceAccess

Enabling a delegated administrator account for IAM Identity Center

When you designate a member account as a delegated administrator for the organization, users and roles from that account can perform administrative actions for IAM Identity Center that otherwise can be performed only by users or roles in the organization's management account. This helps you to separate management of the organization from management of IAM Identity Center.

Minimum permissions

Only a user or role in the Organizations management account can configure a member account as a delegated administrator for IAM Identity Center in the organization.

For instructions about how to enable a delegated administrator account for IAM Identity Center, see Delegated administration in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.