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Returns a set of temporary credentials for an Amazon Web Services account or IAM user.
The credentials consist of an access key ID, a secret access key, and a security token.
Typically, you use GetSessionToken if you want to use MFA to protect programmatic
calls to specific Amazon Web Services API operations like Amazon EC2 StopInstances.
MFA-enabled IAM users must call GetSessionToken and submit an MFA code that
is associated with their MFA device. Using the temporary security credentials that
the call returns, IAM users can then make programmatic calls to API operations that
require MFA authentication. An incorrect MFA code causes the API to return an access
denied error. For a comparison of GetSessionToken with the other API operations
that produce temporary credentials, see Requesting
Temporary Security Credentials and Comparing
the Amazon Web Services STS API operations in the IAM User Guide.
No permissions are required for users to perform this operation. The purpose of the
sts:GetSessionToken operation is to authenticate the user using MFA. You cannot
use policies to control authentication operations. For more information, see Permissions
for GetSessionToken in the IAM User Guide.
Session Duration
The GetSessionToken operation must be called by using the long-term Amazon
Web Services security credentials of an IAM user. Credentials that are created by
IAM users are valid for the duration that you specify. This duration can range from
900 seconds (15 minutes) up to a maximum of 129,600 seconds (36 hours), with a default
of 43,200 seconds (12 hours). Credentials based on account credentials can range from
900 seconds (15 minutes) up to 3,600 seconds (1 hour), with a default of 1 hour.
Permissions
The temporary security credentials created by GetSessionToken can be used to
make API calls to any Amazon Web Services service with the following exceptions:
You cannot call any IAM API operations unless MFA authentication information is included in the request.
You cannot call any STS API exceptAssumeRole or GetCallerIdentity.
The credentials that GetSessionToken returns are based on permissions associated
with the IAM user whose credentials were used to call the operation. The temporary
credentials have the same permissions as the IAM user.
Although it is possible to call GetSessionToken using the security credentials
of an Amazon Web Services account root user rather than an IAM user, we do not recommend
it. If GetSessionToken is called using root user credentials, the temporary
credentials have root user permissions. For more information, see Safeguard
your root user credentials and don't use them for everyday tasks in the IAM
User Guide
For more information about using GetSessionToken to create temporary credentials,
see Temporary
Credentials for Users in Untrusted Environments in the IAM User Guide.
For .NET Core this operation is only available in asynchronous form. Please refer to GetSessionTokenAsync.
Namespace: Amazon.SecurityToken
Assembly: AWSSDK.SecurityToken.dll
Version: 3.x.y.z
public abstract GetSessionTokenResponse GetSessionToken()
| Exception | Condition |
|---|---|
| RegionDisabledException | STS is not activated in the requested region for the account that is being asked to generate credentials. The account administrator must use the IAM console to activate STS in that region. For more information, see Activating and Deactivating Amazon Web Services STS in an Amazon Web Services Region in the IAM User Guide. |
.NET Framework:
Supported in: 4.5, 4.0, 3.5