Policy best practices Using the console Allow users to view their own permissions IAM managed policies for X-Ray Specifying a resource within an IAM policy

AWS X-Ray identity-based policy examples

By default, IAM users and roles don't have permission to create or modify X-Ray resources. They also can't perform tasks using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or AWS API. An IAM administrator must create IAM policies that grant users and roles permission to perform specific API operations on the specified resources they need. The administrator must then attach those policies to the IAM users or groups that require those permissions.

To learn how to create an IAM identity-based policy using these example JSON policy documents, see Creating Policies on the JSON Tab in the IAM User Guide.

Topics

Policy best practices
Using the X-Ray console
Allow users to view their own permissions
IAM managed policies for X-Ray
Specifying a resource within an IAM policy

Policy best practices

Identity-based policies are very powerful. They determine whether someone can create, access, or delete X-Ray resources in your account. These actions can incur costs for your AWS account. When you create or edit identity-based policies, follow these guidelines and recommendations:

Get Started Using AWS Managed Policies – To start using X-Ray quickly, use AWS managed policies to give your employees the permissions they need. These policies are already available in your account and are maintained and updated by AWS. For more information, see Get Started Using Permissions With AWS Managed Policies in the IAM User Guide.
Grant Least Privilege – When you create custom policies, grant only the permissions required to perform a task. Start with a minimum set of permissions and grant additional permissions as necessary. Doing so is more secure than starting with permissions that are too lenient and then trying to tighten them later. For more information, see Grant Least Privilege in the IAM User Guide.
Enable MFA for Sensitive Operations – For extra security, require IAM users to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access sensitive resources or API operations. For more information, see Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in AWS in the IAM User Guide.
Use Policy Conditions for Extra Security – To the extent that it's practical, define the conditions under which your identity-based policies allow access to a resource. For example, you can write conditions to specify a range of allowable IP addresses that a request must come from. You can also write conditions to allow requests only within a specified date or time range, or to require the use of SSL or MFA. For more information, see IAM JSON Policy Elements: Condition in the IAM User Guide.

Using the X-Ray console

To access the AWS X-Ray console, you must have a minimum set of permissions. These permissions must allow you to list and view details about the X-Ray resources in your AWS account. If you create an identity-based policy that is more restrictive than the minimum required permissions, the console won't function as intended for entities (IAM users or roles) with that policy.

To ensure that those entities can still use the X-Ray console, also attach the following AWS managed policy to the entities. For more information, see Adding Permissions to a User in the IAM User Guide:


AWSXrayReadOnlyAccess

You don't need to allow minimum console permissions for users that are making calls only to the AWS CLI or the AWS API. Instead, allow access to only the actions that match the API operation that you're trying to perform.

Allow users to view their own permissions

This example shows how you might create a policy that allows IAM users to view the inline and managed policies that are attached to their user identity. This policy includes permissions to complete this action on the console or programmatically using the AWS CLI or AWS API.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ViewOwnUserInfo",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetUserPolicy",
                "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
                  "iam:ListAttachedUserPolicies",
                "iam:ListUserPolicies",
                "iam:GetUser"
            ],
            "Resource": ["arn:aws:iam::*:user/${aws:username}"]
        },
        {
            "Sid": "NavigateInConsole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetGroupPolicy",
                "iam:GetPolicyVersion",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:ListAttachedGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
                "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
                "iam:ListPolicies",
                "iam:ListUsers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

IAM managed policies for X-Ray

To make granting permissions easy, IAM supports managed policies for each service. A service can update these managed policies with new permissions when it releases new APIs. AWS X-Ray provides managed policies for read only, write only, and administrator use cases.

AWSXrayReadOnlyAccess – Read permissions for using the X-Ray console, AWS CLI, or AWS SDK to get trace data and service maps from the X-Ray API. Includes permission to view sampling rules.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "xray:GetSamplingRules",
                "xray:GetSamplingTargets",
                "xray:GetSamplingStatisticSummaries",
                "xray:BatchGetTraces",
                "xray:GetServiceGraph",
                "xray:GetTraceGraph",
                "xray:GetTraceSummaries",
                "xray:GetGroups",
                "xray:GetGroup"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

AWSXRayDaemonWriteAccess – Write permissions for using the X-Ray daemon, AWS CLI, or AWS SDK to upload segment documents and telemetry to the X-Ray API. Includes read permissions to get sampling rules and report sampling results.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "xray:PutTraceSegments",
                "xray:PutTelemetryRecords",
                "xray:GetSamplingRules",
                "xray:GetSamplingTargets",
                "xray:GetSamplingStatisticSummaries"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

AWSXrayFullAccess – Permission to use all X-Ray APIs, including read permissions, write permissions, and permission to configure encryption key settings and sampling rules.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "xray:*"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

To add a managed policy to an IAM user, group, or role

Open the IAM console.
Open the role associated with your instance profile, an IAM user, or an IAM group.
Under Permissions, attach the managed policy.

Specifying a resource within an IAM policy

You can control access to resources by using an IAM policy. For actions that support resource-level permissions, you use an Amazon Resource Name (ARN) to identify the resource that the policy applies to.

All X-Ray actions can be used in an IAM policy to grant or deny users permission to use that action. However, not all X-Ray actions support resource-level permissions, which enable you to specify the resources on which an action can be performed.

For actions that don't support resource-level permissions, you must use "*" as the resource.

The following X-Ray actions support resource-level permissions:

CreateGroup
GetGroup
UpdateGroup
DeleteGroup
CreateSamplingRule
UpdateSamplingRule
DeleteSamplingRule

The following is an example of an identity-based permissions policy for a CreateGroup action. The example shows the use of an ARN relating to Group name local-users with the unique ID as a wildcard. The unique ID is generated when the group is created, and so it can't be predicted in the policy in advance. When using GetGroup, UpdateGroup, or DeleteGroup, you can define this as either a wildcard or the exact ARN, including ID.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "xray:CreateGroup"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:xray:eu-west-1:123456789012:group/local-users/*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

The following is an example of an identity-based permissions policy for a CreateSamplingRule action.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "xray:CreateSamplingRule"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:xray:eu-west-1:123456789012:sampling-rule/base-scorekeep"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Note

The ARN of a sampling rule is defined by its name. Unlike group ARNs, sampling rules have no uniquely generated ID.

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