Implementation for accessing IdentityManagementService AWS Identity and Access Management

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that you can use to manage users and user permissions under your AWS account. This guide provides descriptions of the IAM API. For general information about IAM, see AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). For the user guide for IAM, see Using IAM.

Using the IAM Query API, you make direct calls to the IAM web service. IAM supports GET and POST requests for all actions. That is, the API does not require you to use GET for some actions and POST for others. However, GET requests are subject to the limitation size of a URL. Therefore, for operations that require larger sizes, use a POST request.

Signing Requests

Requests must be signed using an access key ID and a secret access key. We strongly recommend that you do not use your AWS account access key ID and secret access key for everyday work with IAM. You can use the access key ID and secret access key for an IAM user or you can use the AWS Security Token Service to generate temporary security credentials and use those to sign requests.

To sign requests, we recommend that you use Signature Version 4. If you have an existing application that uses Signature Version 2, you do not have to update it to use Signature Version 4. However, some operations now require Signature Version 4. The documentation for operations that require version 4 indicate this requirement.

Recording API requests

IAM supports AWS CloudTrail, which is a service that records AWS calls for your AWS account and delivers log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By using information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine what requests were successfully made to IAM, who made the request, when it was made, and so on. To learn more about CloudTrail, including how to turn it on and find your log files, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Additional Resources

For more information, see the following:

• AWS Security Credentials. This topic provides general information about the types of credentials used for accessing AWS.
• IAM Best Practices. This topic presents a list of suggestions for using the IAM service to help secure your AWS resources.
• AWS Security Token Service. This guide describes how to create and use temporary security credentials.
• Signing AWS API Requests. This set of topics walk you through the process of signing a request using an access key ID and secret access key.

Implementation for accessing IdentityManagementService AWS Identity and Access Management

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that you can use to manage users and user permissions under your AWS account. This guide provides descriptions of the IAM API. For general information about IAM, see AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). For the user guide for IAM, see Using IAM.

Using the IAM Query API, you make direct calls to the IAM web service. IAM supports GET and POST requests for all actions. That is, the API does not require you to use GET for some actions and POST for others. However, GET requests are subject to the limitation size of a URL. Therefore, for operations that require larger sizes, use a POST request.

Signing Requests

Requests must be signed using an access key ID and a secret access key. We strongly recommend that you do not use your AWS account access key ID and secret access key for everyday work with IAM. You can use the access key ID and secret access key for an IAM user or you can use the AWS Security Token Service to generate temporary security credentials and use those to sign requests.

To sign requests, we recommend that you use Signature Version 4. If you have an existing application that uses Signature Version 2, you do not have to update it to use Signature Version 4. However, some operations now require Signature Version 4. The documentation for operations that require version 4 indicate this requirement.

Recording API requests

IAM supports AWS CloudTrail, which is a service that records AWS calls for your AWS account and delivers log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By using information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine what requests were successfully made to IAM, who made the request, when it was made, and so on. To learn more about CloudTrail, including how to turn it on and find your log files, see the AWS CloudTrail User Guide.

Additional Resources

For more information, see the following:

• AWS Security Credentials. This topic provides general information about the types of credentials used for accessing AWS.
• IAM Best Practices. This topic presents a list of suggestions for using the IAM service to help secure your AWS resources.
• AWS Security Token Service. This guide describes how to create and use temporary security credentials.
• Signing AWS API Requests. This set of topics walk you through the process of signing a request using an access key ID and secret access key.

Configuration for accessing Amazon IdentityManagementService service