Using service-linked roles for Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora uses AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) service-linked roles. A service-linked role is a unique type of IAM role that is linked directly to Amazon Aurora. Service-linked roles are predefined by Amazon Aurora and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes using Amazon Aurora easier because you don't have to manually add the necessary permissions. Amazon Aurora defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only Amazon Aurora can assume its roles. The defined permissions include the trust policy and the permissions policy, and that permissions policy cannot be attached to any other IAM entity.

You can delete the roles only after first deleting their related resources. This protects your Amazon Aurora resources because you can't inadvertently remove permission to access the resources.

For information about other services that support service-linked roles, see AWS services that work with IAM and look for the services that have Yes in the Service-Linked Role column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForRDS to allow Amazon RDS to call AWS services on behalf of your DB clusters.

The AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

This service-linked role has a permissions policy attached to it called AmazonRDSServiceRolePolicy that grants it permissions to operate in your account.

For more information about this policy, including the JSON policy document, see AmazonRDSServiceRolePolicy in the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide.

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/rds.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForRDS",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}
    

Creating a service-linked role for Amazon Aurora

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you create a DB cluster, Amazon Aurora creates the service-linked role for you.

If you delete this service-linked role, and then need to create it again, you can use the same process to recreate the role in your account. When you create a DB cluster, Amazon Aurora creates the service-linked role for you again.

Editing a service-linked role for Amazon Aurora

Amazon Aurora does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role. After you create a service-linked role, you cannot change the name of the role because various entities might reference the role. However, you can edit the description of the role using IAM. For more information, see Editing a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Deleting a service-linked role for Amazon Aurora

If you no longer need to use a feature or service that requires a service-linked role, we recommend that you delete that role. That way you don't have an unused entity that is not actively monitored or maintained. However, you must delete all of your DB clusters before you can delete the service-linked role.

Cleaning up a service-linked role

Before you can use IAM to delete a service-linked role, you must first confirm that the role has no active sessions and remove any resources used by the role.

If you want to remove the AWSServiceRoleForRDS role, you must first delete all of your DB clusters.

Deleting all of your clusters

Use one of the following procedures to delete a single cluster. Repeat the procedure for each of your clusters.

To delete a cluster (CLI)

See delete-db-cluster in the AWS CLI Command Reference.

To delete a cluster (API)

See DeleteDBCluster in the Amazon RDS API Reference.

You can use the IAM console, the IAM CLI, or the IAM API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForRDS service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Service-linked role permissions for Amazon RDS Beta

Amazon Aurora uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForRDSBeta to allow Amazon Aurora to call AWS services on behalf of your RDS DB resources.

The AWSServiceRoleForRDSBeta service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

This service-linked role has a permissions policy attached to it called AmazonRDSBetaServiceRolePolicy that grants it permissions to operate in your account. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonRDSBetaServiceRolePolicy.

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/custom.rds.amazonaws.com/AmazonRDSBetaServiceRolePolicy",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"custom.rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}
    

Service-linked role for Amazon RDS Preview

Amazon Aurora uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForRDSPreview to allow Amazon Aurora to call AWS services on behalf of your RDS DB resources.

The AWSServiceRoleForRDSPreview service-linked role trusts the following services to assume the role:

This service-linked role has a permissions policy attached to it called AmazonRDSPreviewServiceRolePolicy that grants it permissions to operate in your account. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonRDSPreviewServiceRolePolicy.

{
    "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/aws-service-role/custom.rds.amazonaws.com/AmazonRDSPreviewServiceRolePolicy",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "iam:AWSServiceName":"custom.rds.amazonaws.com"
        }
    }
}