Obtaining temporary security credentials from AWS Identity and Access Management Roles Anywhere

To obtain temporary security credentials from AWS Identity and Access Management Roles Anywhere, use the credential helper tool that IAM Roles Anywhere provides. This tool is compatible with the credential_process feature available across the language SDKs. The helper manages the process of creating a signature with the certificate and calling the endpoint to obtain session credentials; it returns the credentials to the calling process in a standard JSON format. See Temporary security credentials in IAM for more information on session credentials.

To download the credential helper tool, use the following links. Releases for Darwin and Windows on or after version 1.1.1 are signed.

Platform	Download URL	SHA256 checksum
Linux	https://rolesanywhere.amazonaws.com/releases/1.1.1/X86_64/Linux/aws_signing_helper	3761071497510ae1bde82aa31e34bbb63b9701deb932434e786a8479062b2b9b
Windows	https://rolesanywhere.amazonaws.com/releases/1.1.1/X86_64/Windows/aws_signing_helper.exe	3fbed4f8c30a7718d919f885b004ef2d96a3fefab4249f90067dab183b648225
Darwin	https://rolesanywhere.amazonaws.com/releases/1.1.1/X86_64/Darwin/aws_signing_helper	8c9470217d7502c23b8ae9cfadab4f249636eecebe35cea043d055cf740283a6

Before you can obtain temporary credentials, you must have both an end-entity certificate from the certificate authority and a trust anchor in IAM Roles Anywhere. For more information, see Creating a trust anchor and profile.

Synopsis

./aws_signing_helper credential-process \
    --certificate
    [--endpoint]
    [--region]
    [--intermediates]
    --private-key
    --profile-arn
    --role-arn
    [--session-duration]
    --trust-anchor-arn
    [--with-proxy]
    [--no-verify-ssl]

Options

--certificate (string)

Path to certificate file

--endpoint (string)

The IAM Roles Anywhere endpoint for the region. For a list of endpoints, see Service endpoints and quotas.

--region (string)

Signing region.

--intermediates (string)

Path to intermediate certificate bundle.

--private-key (string)

Path to private key file.

--profile-arn (string)

Profile to pull policies from.

--role-arn (string)

Target role to assume.

--session-duration (int)

Duration, in seconds, for the resulting session (default 3600).

--trust-anchor-arn (string)

Trust anchor to to use for authentication.

--with-proxy

To use the tool with a proxy. This is a boolean flag. Note that you will have to set the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable with the address of the proxy server.

--no-verify-ssl

To disable SSL verification. This is a boolean flag.

Important

Note that this disables TLS host authentication, and can open the connection to man-in-the-middle attacks. This option should only be used under specific, tightly controlled scenarios, such as debugging proxy connections.

Output

The credential helper tool will return a JSON containing the credentials. This format allows the credentials to be consumed by the external credential process supported by the credential_process.

                {
                    "Version":1,
                    "AccessKeyId": String,
                    "SecretAccessKey": String,
                    "SessionToken": String,
                    "Expiration": Timestamp
                } 
            

Examples

Example Obtain temporary security credentials

To obtain temporary security credentials, use the following command.

$ ./aws_signing_helper credential-process \
      --certificate /path/to/certificate \
      --private-key /path/to/private-key \
      --trust-anchor-arn arn:aws:rolesanywhere:region:account:trust-anchor/TA_ID \
      --profile-arn arn:aws:rolesanywhere:region:account:profile/PROFILE_ID \
      --role-arn arn:aws:iam::account:role/role-name-with-path

Example Use temporary security credentials with AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI

To use temporary security credentials with AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI, you can configure the credential helper tool as a credential process. For more information, see Sourcing credentials with an external process.

The following example shows a the config file that sets the helper tool as the credential process.

[profile developer]
    credential_process = ./aws_signing_helper credential-process --certificate /path/to/certificate --private-key /path/to/private-key --trust-anchor-arn arn:aws:rolesanywhere:region:account:trust-anchor/TA_ID --profile-arn arn:aws:rolesanywhere:region:account:profile/PROFILE_ID --role-arn arn:aws:iam::account:role/role-name-with-path

Credential Helper on GitHub

The source code for the credential helper is available on GitHub so that you can adapt the helper to your needs. We encourage you to submit pull requests for changes that you would like to have included. However, AWS doesn't provide support for running modified copies of this software.

Credential Helper Changelog

CredentialHelper version 1.1.1

On October 12, 2023, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.1.1. As a part of this release, providers in Windows are attempted to be silenced when performing signing operations. Also, Windows user certificate store names can now be explicitly provided.

CredentialHelper version 1.1.0

On September 20, 2023, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.1.0. As a part of this release, PKCS#11 module integration is now supported. Also, any debug logs that previously went to stderr now go to stdout.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.6

On August 16, 2023, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.6. As a part of this release, certificates within OS secure stores that can't be parsed are now skipped. An issue relating to mismatched regions in the ARN inputs is also now fixed.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.5

On July 25, 2023, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.5. As a part of this release, some bugs relating to the update command were fixed. PKCS#12 containers that aren't password-protected are now supported. Lastly, MacOS Keychain Access and Windows CNG/CryptoAPI integrations are also now supported.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.4

On January 17, 2023, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.4. As a part of this release, some bugs specific to the serve command were fixed.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.3

On December 5, 2022, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.3. As a part of this release, the tool now supports the update and serve commands.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.2

On September 8, 2022, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.2. As a part of this release, the tool now sets the minimum TLS version to 1.2.

CredentialHelper version 1.0.1

On July 14, 2022, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere released Credential Helper version 1.0.1. As a part of this release, the tool now has better error handling.