Quickstart default IAM policies for Session Manager

Use the samples in this section to help you create AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies that provide the most commonly needed permissions for Session Manager access.

Note

You can also use an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key policy to control which IAM users, IAM roles, and AWS accounts are given access to your customer master key (CMK). For information, see Overview of Managing Access to Your AWS KMS Resources and Using Key Policies in AWS KMS in the AWS Key Management Service Developer Guide.

Quickstart end user policies for Session Manager

Use the following examples to create IAM end user policies for Session Manager.

You can create a policy that allows users to start sessions from only the Session Manager console and AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), from only the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) console, or from all three.

These policies provide end users the ability to start a session to a particular instance and the ability to end only their own sessions. Refer to Additional sample IAM policies for Session Manager for examples of customizations you might want to make to the policy.

Note

In all the following sample policies, replace instance-id with the ID of the instance you want to grant access to, in the format i-02573cafcfEXAMPLE. Replace region and account-id with your AWS Region and AWS Account ID, such as us-east-2 and 111122223333.

Choose from the following tabs to view the sample policy for the range of session access you want to provide.

Session Manager and CLI

Use this sample policy to provider users with the ability to start sessions from only the Session Manager console and the AWS CLI. This policy doesn't provide all the permissions needed to start sessions from the Amazon EC2 console.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:region:987654321098:instance/i-02573cafcfEXAMPLE",
                "arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:document/SSM-SessionManagerRunShell" 
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "BoolIfExists": {
                    "ssm:SessionDocumentAccessCheck": "true" 
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:DescribeSessions",
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceProperties",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:GenerateDataKey" 
            ],
            "Resource": "key-name"
        }
    ]
}

Amazon EC2

Use this sample policy to provider users with the ability to start sessions from only the Amazon EC2 console. This policy doesn't provide all the permissions needed to start sessions from the Session Manager console and the AWS CLI.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession",
                "ssm:SendCommand" 
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:region:987654321098:instance/i-02573cafcfEXAMPLE"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Session Manager, CLI, and Amazon EC2

Use this sample policy to provider users with the ability to start sessions from the Session Manager console, the AWS CLI, and the Amazon EC2 console.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession",
                "ssm:SendCommand" 
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:region:987654321098:instance/i-02573cafcfEXAMPLE",
                "arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:document/SSM-SessionManagerRunShell" 
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "BoolIfExists": {
                    "ssm:SessionDocumentAccessCheck": "true" 
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:DescribeSessions",
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceProperties",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:GenerateDataKey" 
            ],
            "Resource": "key-name"
        }
    ]
}

¹ SSM-SessionManagerRunShell is the default name of the SSM document that Session Manager creates to store your session configuration preferences. You can create a custom session document and specify it in this policy instead. You can also specify the AWS-provided document AWS-StartSSHSession for users who are starting sessions using SSH. For information about configuration steps needed to support sessions using SSH, see (Optional) Enable SSH connections through Session Manager.

² If you specify the condition element, ssm:SessionDocumentAccessCheck, as true, the system checks that a user has explicit access to the defined session document, in this example SSM-SessionManagerRunShell, before a session is established. For more information, see Enforce a session document permission check for the AWS CLI.

³ The kms:GenerateDataKey permission enables the creation of a data encryption key that will be used to encrypt session data. If you will use AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) encryption for your session data, replace key-name with the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the customer master key (CMK) you want to use, in the format arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:111122223333:key/1234abcd-12ab-34cd-56ef-12345EXAMPLE. If you won't use AWS KMS key encryption for your session data, remove the following content from the policy.

,
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "kms:GenerateDataKey"
            ],
            "Resource": "key-name"
        }

For information about AWS KMS and CMKs for encrypting session data, see Enable AWS KMS key encryption of session data (console).

⁴ The permission for SendCommand is needed for cases where a user attempts to start a session from the Amazon EC2 console, but a command must be sent to update SSM Agent first.

Quickstart administrator policy for Session Manager

Use the following examples to create IAM administrator policies for Session Manager.

These policies provide administrators the ability to start a session to instances that are tagged with Key=Finance,Value=WebServers, permission to create, update, and delete preferences, and permission to end only their own sessions. Refer to Additional sample IAM policies for Session Manager for examples of customizations you might want to make to the policy.

You can create a policy that allows administrators to perform these tasks from only the Session Manager console and AWS CLI, from only the Amazon EC2 console, or from all three.

Note

Replace region and account-id with your AWS Region and AWS Account ID, such as us-east-2 and 111122223333.

Choose from the following tabs to view the sample policy for the access scenario you want to support.

Session Manager and CLI

Use this sample policy to provider administrators with the ability to perform session-related tasks from only the Session Manager console and the AWS CLI. This policy doesn't provide all the permissions needed to perform session-related tasks from the Amazon EC2 console.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2:987654321098:instance/*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "ssm:resourceTag/Finance": [
                        "WebServers"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:DescribeSessions",
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceProperties",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:CreateDocument",
                "ssm:UpdateDocument",
                "ssm:GetDocument"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:document/SSM-SessionManagerRunShell"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Amazon EC2

Use this sample policy to provider administrators with the ability to perform session-related tasks from only the Amazon EC2 console. This policy doesn't provide all the permissions needed to perform session-related tasks from the Session Manager console and the AWS CLI.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession",
                "ssm:SendCommand" 
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2:987654321098:instance/*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "ssm:resourceTag/tag-key": [
                        "tag-value"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Session Manager, CLI, and Amazon EC2

Use this sample policy to provider administrators with the ability to perform session-related tasks from the Session Manager console, the AWS CLI, and the Amazon EC2 console.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:StartSession",
                "ssm:SendCommand" 
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ec2:us-west-2:987654321098:instance/*"
            ],
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "ssm:resourceTag/tag-key": [
                        "tag-value"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:DescribeSessions",
                "ssm:GetConnectionStatus",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceInformation",
                "ssm:DescribeInstanceProperties",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:CreateDocument",
                "ssm:UpdateDocument",
                "ssm:GetDocument"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:document/SSM-SessionManagerRunShell"
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ssm:TerminateSession"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:session/${aws:username}-*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

¹ The permission for SendCommand is needed for cases where a user attempts to start a session from the Amazon EC2 console, but a command must be sent to update SSM Agent first.