Identity and Access Management for Amazon WorkSpaces - Amazon WorkSpaces
Creating the workspaces_DefaultRole RoleSpecifying Amazon WorkSpaces Resources in an IAM Policy

Identity and Access Management for Amazon WorkSpaces

By default, IAM users don't have permissions for Amazon WorkSpaces resources and operations. To allow IAM users to manage Amazon WorkSpaces resources, you must create an IAM policy that explicitly grants them permissions, and attach the policy to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions. For more information about IAM policies, see Policies and Permissions in the IAM User Guide guide.

Amazon WorkSpaces also creates an IAM role to allow the Amazon WorkSpaces service access to required resources.

Note

Amazon WorkSpaces doesn’t support the provisioning of IAM credentials into a WorkSpace (such as with an instance profile).

For more information about IAM, see Identity and Access Management (IAM) and the IAM User Guide. You can find the WorkSpaces-specific resources, actions, and condition context keys for use in IAM permission policies at Actions, Resources, and Condition Keys for Amazon WorkSpaces in the IAM User Guide.

For a tool that helps you create IAM policies, see the AWS Policy Generator. You can also use the IAM Policy Simulator to test whether a policy would allow or deny a specific request to AWS.

Example 1: Perform all Amazon WorkSpaces tasks

The following policy statement grants an IAM user permission to perform all Amazon WorkSpaces tasks, including creating and managing directories. It also grants permission to run the quick setup procedure.

Note that although Amazon WorkSpaces fully supports the Action and Resource elements when using the API and command line tools, you must set them both to "*" in order to use the Amazon WorkSpaces console successfully. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "workspaces:*",
        "ds:*",
        "iam:PassRole", 
        "iam:GetRole", 
        "iam:CreateRole", 
        "iam:PutRolePolicy", 
        "kms:ListAliases",
        "kms:ListKeys",
        "ec2:CreateVpc", 
        "ec2:CreateSubnet", 
        "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface", 
        "ec2:CreateInternetGateway", 
        "ec2:CreateRouteTable", 
        "ec2:CreateRoute", 
        "ec2:CreateTags", 
        "ec2:CreateSecurityGroup", 
        "ec2:DescribeInternetGateways",
        "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
        "ec2:DescribeRouteTables", 
        "ec2:DescribeVpcs", 
        "ec2:DescribeSubnets", 
        "ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces", 
        "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones", 
        "ec2:AttachInternetGateway", 
        "ec2:AssociateRouteTable", 
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress", 
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress", 
        "ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup", 
        "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface", 
        "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress", 
        "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress",
        "workdocs:RegisterDirectory",
        "workdocs:DeregisterDirectory",
        "workdocs:AddUserToGroup"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Example 2: Perform WorkSpace-specific tasks

The following policy statement grants an IAM user permission to perform WorkSpace-specific tasks, such as launching and removing WorkSpaces. In the policy statement, the ds:* action grants broad permissions — full control over all Directory Services objects in the account. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "workspaces:*",
        "ds:*",
        "iam:PutRolePolicy"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

To also grant the user the ability to enable Amazon WorkDocs for users within Amazon WorkSpaces, add the workdocs operation shown in the following example. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "workspaces:*",
        "ds:*",
        "workdocs:AddUserToGroup"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

To also grant the user the ability to use the Launch WorkSpaces wizard, add the kms operations as shown in the following example. 

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "workspaces:*",
        "ds:*",
        "workdocs:AddUserToGroup",
        "kms:ListAliases",
        "kms:ListKeys"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

Creating the workspaces_DefaultRole Role

Before you can register a directory using the API, you must create the workspaces_DefaultRole role, if it doesn't already exist.

To create the workspaces_DefaultRole role

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the IAM console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/.

  2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Roles.

  3. Choose Create role.

  4. Under Select type of trusted entity, choose Another AWS account.

  5. For Account ID, enter your account ID with no hyphens or spaces.

  6. For Options, do not specify multi-factor authentication (MFA).

  7. Choose Next: Permissions.

  8. On the Attach permissions policies page, select the AWS managed policies AmazonWorkSpacesServiceAccess and AmazonWorkSpacesSelfServiceAccess.

  9. Under Set permissions boundary, we recommend that you not use a permissions boundary because of the potential for conflicts with the policies attached to the workspaces_DefaultRole role. Such conflicts could block certain necessary permissions for the role.

  10. Choose Next: Tags.

  11. On the Add tags (optional) page, add tags if needed.

  12. Choose Next: Review.

  13. On the Review page, for Role name, enter workspaces_DefaultRole.

  14. (Optional) For Role description, enter a description.

  15. Choose Create Role.

  16. On the Summary page for the workspaces_DefaultRole role, choose the Trust relationships tab.

  17. On the Trust relationships tab, choose Edit trust relationship.

  18. On the Edit Trust Relationship page, replace the existing policy statement with the following statement. 

    {
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "workspaces.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}

  19. Choose Update Trust Policy.

Specifying Amazon WorkSpaces Resources in an IAM Policy

To specify an Amazon WorkSpaces resource in the Resource element of the policy statement, use the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the resource. You control access to your Amazon WorkSpaces resources by either allowing or denying permissions to use the API actions specified in the Action element of your IAM policy statement. Amazon WorkSpaces defines ARNs for WorkSpaces, bundles, IP groups, and directories.

WorkSpace ARN

A WorkSpace ARN has the syntax shown in the following example.

arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspace/workspace_identifier
region

The Region that the WorkSpace is in (for example, us-east-2).

account_id

The ID of the AWS account, with no hyphens (for example, 123456789012).

workspace_identifier

The ID of the WorkSpace (for example, ws-0123456789).

The following is the format of the Resource element of a policy statement that identifies a specific WorkSpace. 

"Resource": "arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspace/workspace_identifier"

You can use the * wildcard to specify all WorkSpaces that belong to a specific account in a specific Region.

Bundle ARN

A bundle ARN has the syntax shown in the following example.

arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspacebundle/bundle_identifier
region

The Region that the WorkSpace is in (for example, us-east-2).

account_id

The ID of the AWS account, with no hyphens (for example, 123456789012).

bundle_identifier

The ID of the WorkSpace bundle (for example, wsb-0123456789).

The following is the format of the Resource element of a policy statement that identifies a specific bundle. 

"Resource": "arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspacebundle/bundle_identifier"

You can use the * wildcard to specify all bundles that belong to a specific account in a specific Region.

IP Group ARN

An IP group ARN has the syntax shown in the following example.

arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspaceipgroup/ipgroup_identifier
region

The Region that the WorkSpace is in (for example, us-east-2).

account_id

The ID of the AWS account, with no hyphens (for example, 123456789012).

ipgroup_identifier

The ID of the IP group (for example, wsipg-a1bcd2efg).

The following is the format of the Resource element of a policy statement that identifies a specific IP group. 

"Resource": "arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:workspaceipgroup/ipgroup_identifier"

You can use the * wildcard to specify all IP groups that belong to a specific account in a specific Region.

Directory ARN

A directory ARN has the syntax shown in the following example.

arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:directory/directory_identifier
region

The Region that the WorkSpace is in (for example, us-east-2).

account_id

The ID of the AWS account, with no hyphens (for example, 123456789012).

directory_identifier

The ID of the directory (for example, d-12345a67b8).

The following is the format of the Resource element of a policy statement that identifies a specific directory. 

"Resource": "arn:aws:workspaces:region:account_id:directory/directory_identifier"

You can use the * wildcard to specify all directories that belong to a specific account in a specific Region.

API Actions with No Support for Resource-Level Permissions

You can't specify a resource ARN with the following API actions:

  • AssociateIpGroups

  • CreateIpGroup

  • CreateTags

  • DeleteTags

  • DeleteWorkspaceImage

  • DescribeAccount

  • DescribeAccountModifications

  • DescribeTags

  • DescribeWorkspaceDirectories

  • DescribeWorkspaceImages

  • DescribeWorkspaces

  • DescribeWorkspacesConnectionStatus

  • DisassociateIpGroups

  • ImportWorkspaceImage

  • ListAvailableManagementCidrRanges

  • ModifyAccount

For API actions that don't support resource-level permissions, you must specify the resource statement shown in the following example. 

"Resource": "*"