How AWS RAM works with IAM

By default, IAM principals don't have permission to create or modify AWS RAM resources. To allow IAM principals to create or modify resources and perform tasks, you perform one of the following steps. These actions grant permission to use specific resources and API actions.

To provide access, add permissions to your users, groups, or roles:

• Users and groups in AWS IAM Identity Center:

  Create a permission set. Follow the instructions in Create a permission set in the AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide.

• Users managed in IAM through an identity provider:

  Create a role for identity federation. Follow the instructions in Creating a role for a third-party identity provider (federation) in the IAM User Guide.

• IAM users:

  • Create a role that your user can assume. Follow the instructions in Creating a role for an IAM user in the IAM User Guide.

  • (Not recommended) Attach a policy directly to a user or add a user to a user group. Follow the instructions in Adding permissions to a user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

AWS RAM provides several AWS managed policies that you can use that will address the needs of many users. For more information about these, see AWS managed policies for AWS RAM.

If you need finer control over the permissions you grant to your users, you can construct your own policies in the IAM console. For information about creating policies and attaching them to your IAM roles and users, see Policies and permissions in IAM in the AWS Identity and Access Management User Guide.

The following sections provide the AWS RAM specific details for building an IAM permission policy.

Contents

• Policy structure
  • Effect
  • Action
  • Resource
  • Condition

Policy structure

An IAM permission policy is a JSON document that includes the following statements: Effect, Action, Resource, and Condition. An IAM policy typically takes the following form.

{
    "Statement":[{
        "Effect":"<effect>",
        "Action":"<action>",
        "Resource":"<arn>",
        "Condition":{
            "<comparison-operator>":{
                "<key>":"<value>"
            }
        }
    }]
}

Effect

The Effect statement indicates whether the policy allows or denies a principal permission to perform an action. The possible values include: Allow and Deny.

Action

The Action statement specifies the AWS RAM API actions for which the policy is allowing or denying permission. For a complete list of the allowed actions, see Actions defined by AWS Resource Access Manager in the IAM User Guide.

Resource

The Resource statement specifies the AWS RAM resources that are affected by the policy. To specify a resource in the statement, you need to use its unique Amazon Resource Name (ARN). For a complete list of the allowed resources, see Resources defined by AWS Resource Access Manager in the IAM User Guide.

Condition

Condition statements are optional. They can be used to further refine the conditions under which the policy applies. AWS RAM supports the following condition keys:

• aws:RequestTag/${TagKey} – Tests whether the service request includes a tag with the specified tag key exists and has the specified value.

• aws:ResourceTag/${TagKey} – Tests whether the resource acted on by the service request has an attached tag with a tag key that you specify in the policy.

  The following example condition checks that the resource referenced in the service request has an attached tag with the key name "Owner" and a value of "Dev Team".

  "Condition" : { 
      "StringEquals" : {
          "aws:ResourceTag/Owner" : "Dev Team" 
      } 
  }

• aws:TagKeys – Specifies the tag keys that must be used to create or tag a resource share.

• ram:AllowsExternalPrincipals – Tests whether the resource share in the service request allows sharing with external principals. An external principal is an AWS account outside of your organization in AWS Organizations. If this evaluates to False, then you can share this resource share with accounts only in the same organization.

• ram:PermissionArn – Tests whether the permission ARN specified in the service request matches an ARN string that you specify in the policy.

• ram:PermissionResourceType – Tests whether the permission specified in the service request is valid for the resource type that you specify in the policy. Specify resource types using the format shown in the list of shareable resource types.

• ram:Principal – Tests whether the ARN of the principal specified in the service request matches an ARN string that you specify in the policy.

• ram:RequestedAllowsExternalPrincipals – Tests whether the service request includes the allowExternalPrincipals parameter and whether its argument matches the value you specify in the policy.

• ram:RequestedResourceType – Tests whether the resource type of the resource being acted on matches a resource type string that you specify in the policy. Specify resource types using the format shown in the list of shareable resource types.

• ram:ResourceArn – Tests whether the ARN of the resource being acted upon by the service request matches an ARN that you specify in the policy.

• ram:ResourceShareName – Tests whether the name of the resource share being acted upon by the service request matches a string that you specify in the policy.

• ram:ShareOwnerAccountId – Tests the account ID number of the resource share being acted upon by the service request matches a string that you specify in the policy.