How Amazon VPC Lattice works with IAM

Before you use IAM to manage access to VPC Lattice, learn what IAM features are available to use with VPC Lattice.

IAM features you can use with Amazon VPC Lattice
IAM feature	VPC Lattice support
Identity-based policies	Yes
Resource-based policies	Yes
Policy actions	Yes
Policy resources	Yes
Policy condition keys	Yes
ACLs	No
ABAC (tags in policies)	Yes
Temporary credentials	Yes
Service roles	No
Service-linked roles	Yes

For a high-level view of how VPC Lattice and other AWS services work with most IAM features, see AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.

Identity-based policies for VPC Lattice

Supports identity-based policies: Yes

Identity-based policies are JSON permissions policy documents that you can attach to an identity, such as an IAM user, group of users, or role. These policies control what actions users and roles can perform, on which resources, and under what conditions. To learn how to create an identity-based policy, see Creating IAM policies in the IAM User Guide.

With IAM identity-based policies, you can specify allowed or denied actions and resources as well as the conditions under which actions are allowed or denied. You can't specify the principal in an identity-based policy because it applies to the user or role to which it is attached. To learn about all of the elements that you can use in a JSON policy, see IAM JSON policy elements reference in the IAM User Guide.

Resource-based policies within VPC Lattice

Supports resource-based policies: Yes

Resource-based policies are JSON policy documents that you attach to a resource. In services that support resource-based policies, service administrators can use them to control access to a specific resource. For the resource where the policy is attached, the policy defines what actions a specified principal can perform on that resource and under what conditions. You must specify a principal in a resource-based policy.

VPC Lattice supports auth policies, a resource-based policy that lets you control access to services in your service network. For more information, see Control access to VPC Lattice services using auth policies.

VPC Lattice also supports resource-based permissions policies for integration with AWS Resource Access Manager. You can use these resource-based policies to grant usage permission to other AWS accounts or organizations to enable resource sharing. For more information, see Share your VPC Lattice resources.

Policy actions for VPC Lattice

Supports policy actions: Yes

In an IAM policy statement, you can specify any API action from any service that supports IAM. For VPC Lattice, use the following prefix with the name of the API action: vpc-lattice:. For example: vpc-lattice:CreateService, vpc-lattice:CreateTargetGroup, and vpc-lattice:PutAuthPolicy.

To specify multiple actions in a single statement, separate them with commas, as follows:

"Action": [ "vpc-lattice:action1", "vpc-lattice:action2" ]

You can also specify multiple actions using wildcards. For example, you can specify all actions whose names begin with the word Get, as follows:

"Action": "vpc-lattice:Get*"

For a complete list of VPC Lattice API actions, see Actions defined by Amazon VPC Lattice in the Service Authorization Reference.

Policy resources for VPC Lattice

Supports policy resources: Yes

In an IAM policy statement, the Resource element specifies the object or objects that the statement covers. For VPC Lattice, each IAM policy statement applies to the resources that you specify using their ARNs.

The specific Amazon Resource Name (ARN) format depends on the resource. When you provide an ARN, replace the italicized text with your resource-specific information.

• Access log subscriptions:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:accesslogsubscription/access-log-subscription-id"

• Listeners:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:service/service-id/listener/listener-id"

• Rules:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:service/service-id/listener/listener-id/rule/rule-id"

• Services:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:service/service-id"

• Service networks:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:servicenetwork/service-network-id"

• Service network service associations:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:servicenetworkserviceassociation/service-network-service-association-id"

• Service network VPC associations:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:servicenetworkvpcassociation/service-network-vpc-association-id"

• Target groups:

  "Resource": "arn:aws:vpc-lattice:region:account-id:targetgroup/target-group-id"

Policy condition keys for VPC Lattice

Supports service-specific policy condition keys: Yes

Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which principal can perform actions on what resources, and under what conditions.

The Condition element (or Condition block) lets you specify conditions in which a statement is in effect. The Condition element is optional. You can create conditional expressions that use condition operators, such as equals or less than, to match the condition in the policy with values in the request.

If you specify multiple Condition elements in a statement, or multiple keys in a single Condition element, AWS evaluates them using a logical AND operation. If you specify multiple values for a single condition key, AWS evaluates the condition using a logical OR operation. All of the conditions must be met before the statement's permissions are granted.

You can also use placeholder variables when you specify conditions. For example, you can grant an IAM user permission to access a resource only if it is tagged with their IAM user name. For more information, see IAM policy elements: variables and tags in the IAM User Guide.

AWS supports global condition keys and service-specific condition keys. To see all AWS global condition keys, see AWS global condition context keys in the IAM User Guide.

To see a list of the VPC Lattice condition keys, see Condition keys for Amazon VPC Lattice in the Service Authorization Reference.

AWS supports global condition keys and service-specific condition keys. For information about AWS global condition keys, see AWS global condition context keys in the IAM User Guide.

Access control lists (ACLs) in VPC Lattice

Supports ACLs: No

Access control lists (ACLs) control which principals (account members, users, or roles) have permissions to access a resource. ACLs are similar to resource-based policies, although they do not use the JSON policy document format.

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) with VPC Lattice

Supports ABAC (tags in policies): Yes

Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on attributes. In AWS, these attributes are called tags. You can attach tags to IAM entities (users or roles) and to many AWS resources. Tagging entities and resources is the first step of ABAC. Then you design ABAC policies to allow operations when the principal's tag matches the tag on the resource that they are trying to access.

ABAC is helpful in environments that are growing rapidly and helps with situations where policy management becomes cumbersome.

To control access based on tags, you provide tag information in the condition element of a policy using the aws:ResourceTag/key-name, aws:RequestTag/key-name, or aws:TagKeys condition keys.

If a service supports all three condition keys for every resource type, then the value is Yes for the service. If a service supports all three condition keys for only some resource types, then the value is Partial.

For more information about ABAC, see What is ABAC? in the IAM User Guide. To view a tutorial with steps for setting up ABAC, see Use attribute-based access control (ABAC) in the IAM User Guide.

Using temporary credentials with VPC Lattice

Supports temporary credentials: Yes

Some AWS services don't work when you sign in using temporary credentials. For additional information, including which AWS services work with temporary credentials, see AWS services that work with IAM in the IAM User Guide.

You are using temporary credentials if you sign in to the AWS Management Console using any method except a user name and password. For example, when you access AWS using your company's single sign-on (SSO) link, that process automatically creates temporary credentials. You also automatically create temporary credentials when you sign in to the console as a user and then switch roles. For more information about switching roles, see Switching to a role (console) in the IAM User Guide.

You can manually create temporary credentials using the AWS CLI or AWS API. You can then use those temporary credentials to access AWS. AWS recommends that you dynamically generate temporary credentials instead of using long-term access keys. For more information, see Temporary security credentials in IAM.

Service roles for VPC Lattice

Supports service roles: No

A service role is an IAM role that a service assumes to perform actions on your behalf. An IAM administrator can create, modify, and delete a service role from within IAM. For more information, see Creating a role to delegate permissions to an AWS service in the IAM User Guide.

Warning

Changing the permissions for a service role might break VPC Lattice functionality. Edit service roles only when VPC Lattice provides guidance to do so.

Service-linked roles for VPC Lattice

Supports service-linked roles: Yes

A service-linked role is a type of service role that is linked to an AWS service. The service can assume the role to perform an action on your behalf. Service-linked roles appear in your AWS account and are owned by the service. An IAM administrator can view, but not edit the permissions for service-linked roles.

For information about creating or managing VPC Lattice service-linked roles, see Using service-linked roles for Amazon VPC Lattice.