AWS Single Sign-On and AWS Organizations - AWS Organizations
Service-linked rolesService principalsEnable trusted accessDisable trusted access

AWS Single Sign-On and AWS Organizations

AWS Single Sign-On (AWS SSO) provides single sign-on services 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 user portal using their existing Active Directory user names and passwords. From the portal, users have access to all the AWS accounts and cloud applications that you provide in the portal.

For more information about AWS SSO, see the AWS Single Sign-On User Guide.

Use the following information to help you to help you integrate AWS Single Sign-On with AWS Organizations.

Service-linked roles created when you enable integration

The following service-linked role is automatically created in your organization's accounts when you enable trusted access. These roles allow AWS SSO to perform supported operations within the accounts in your organization.

You can delete or modify these roles only if you disable trusted access between AWS SSO and Organizations, or if you remove the member account from the organization.

  • AWSServiceRoleForSSO

Service principals used by the service-linked roles

The service-linked roles 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 AWS SSO grant access to the following service principals:

  • sso.amazonaws.com

Enabling trusted access with AWS SSO

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 Single Sign-On console or the AWS Organizations console.

Important

We strongly recommend that whenever possible, you use the AWS Single Sign-On console or tools to enable integration with Organizations. This lets AWS Single Sign-On 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 Single Sign-On.For more information, see this note.

If you enable trusted access by using the AWS Single Sign-On console or tools then you don’t need to complete these steps.

AWS SSO requires trusted access with AWS Organizations to function. Trusted access is enabled when you set up AWS SSO. For more information, see Getting Started - Step 1: Enable AWS Single Sign-On in the AWS Single Sign-On 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.

Old 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 Settings tab under Trusted access for AWS services, find the row for AWS Single Sign-On, and then choose Enable trusted access.

  3. In the confirmation dialog box, choose Enable access for service-name.

  4. If you are the administrator of only AWS Organizations, tell the administrator of AWS Single Sign-On that they can now enable that service using its console to work with AWS Organizations.

New 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 Single Sign-On, 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 Single Sign-On 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: aws organizations enable-aws-service-access

    You can run the following command to enable AWS Single Sign-On 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 AWS SSO

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

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

If you remove an account from your organization, AWS SSO 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 AWS SSO.

You can disable trusted access using only the Organizations console or 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.

Old 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 Settings tab under Trusted access for AWS services, find the row for AWS Single Sign-On and then choose Disable access.

  3. In the dialog box, choose Disable access for service-name.

  4. If you are the administrator of only AWS Organizations, tell the administrator of AWS Single Sign-On that they can now disable that service using its console or tools from working with AWS Organizations.

New 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 Single Sign-On and then choose the service’s name.

  3. Choose Enable 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 Single Sign-On 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: