# Identity and Access Management for AWS Clean Rooms
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AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an AWS service that helps an administrator securely control access to AWS resources. IAM administrators control who can be *authenticated* (signed in) and *authorized* (have permissions) to use AWS Clean Rooms resources. IAM is an AWS service that you can use with no additional charge.

**Topics**
+ [Audience](#security-iam-audience)
+ [Authenticating with identities](#security-iam-auth-with-identities)
+ [Managing access using policies](#security-iam-managing-access)
+ [How AWS Clean Rooms works with IAM](security_iam_service-with-iam.md)
+ [Identity-based policy examples for AWS Clean Rooms](security_iam_id-based-policy-examples.md)
+ [AWS managed policies for AWS Clean Rooms](security-iam-awsmanpol.md)
+ [Troubleshooting AWS Clean Rooms identity and access](security_iam_troubleshoot.md)
+ [Cross-service confused deputy prevention](cross-service-confused-deputy-prevention.md)
+ [IAM behaviors for AWS Clean Rooms ML](ml-behaviors.md)
+ [IAM behaviors for Clean Rooms ML Custom Models](ml-behaviors-byom.md)

## Audience
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How you use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) differs based on your role:
+ **Service user** - request permissions from your administrator if you cannot access features (see [Troubleshooting AWS Clean Rooms identity and access](security_iam_troubleshoot.md))
+ **Service administrator** - determine user access and submit permission requests (see [How AWS Clean Rooms works with IAM](security_iam_service-with-iam.md))
+ **IAM administrator** - write policies to manage access (see [Identity-based policy examples for AWS Clean Rooms](security_iam_id-based-policy-examples.md))

## Authenticating with identities
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Authentication is how you sign in to AWS using your identity credentials. You must be *authenticated* (signed in to AWS) as the AWS account root user, as an IAM user, or by assuming an IAM role.

You can sign in to AWS as a federated identity by using credentials provided through an identity source. AWS IAM Identity Center (IAM Identity Center) users or your company's single sign-on authentication are examples of federated identities. When you sign in as a federated identity, your administrator previously set up identity federation using IAM roles. When you access AWS by using federation, you are indirectly assuming a role.

Depending on the type of user you are, you can sign in to the AWS Management Console or the AWS access portal. For more information about signing in to AWS, see [How to sign in to your AWS account](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/signin/latest/userguide/how-to-sign-in.html) in the *AWS Sign-In User Guide*.

If you access AWS programmatically, AWS provides a software development kit (SDK) and a command line interface (CLI) to cryptographically sign your requests using your credentials. If you don't use AWS tools, you must sign requests yourself. For more information about using the recommended method to sign requests yourself, see [Signature Version 4 signing process](https://docs.aws.amazon.com//general/latest/gr/signature-version-4.html) in the *AWS General Reference*.

Regardless of the authentication method that you use, you might be required to provide additional security information. For example, AWS recommends that you use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to increase the security of your account. To learn more, see [Multi-factor authentication](https://docs.aws.amazon.com//singlesignon/latest/userguide/enable-mfa.html) in the *AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide* and [Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) in AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com//IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_mfa.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.

### AWS account root user
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When you create an AWS account, you begin with one sign-in identity that has complete access to all AWS services and resources in the account. This identity is called the AWS account *root user* and is accessed by signing in with the email address and password that you used to create the account. We strongly recommend that you do not use the root user for your everyday tasks. Safeguard your root user credentials and use them to perform the tasks that only the root user can perform. For the complete list of tasks that require you to sign in as the root user, see [AWS account root user credentials and IAM identities](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/root-vs-iam.html#aws_tasks-that-require-root) in the *AWS General Reference*. 

### Federated identity
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As a best practice, require human users to use federation with an identity provider to access AWS services using temporary credentials.

A *federated identity* is a user from your enterprise directory, web identity provider, or Directory Service that accesses AWS services using credentials from an identity source. Federated identities assume roles that provide temporary credentials.

For centralized access management, we recommend AWS IAM Identity Center. For more information, see [What is IAM Identity Center?](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/singlesignon/latest/userguide/what-is.html) in the *AWS IAM Identity Center User Guide*.

### IAM users and groups
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An *[IAM user](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_users.html)* is an identity with specific permissions for a single person or application. We recommend using temporary credentials instead of IAM users with long-term credentials. For more information, see [Require human users to use federation with an identity provider to access AWS using temporary credentials](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html#bp-users-federation-idp) in the *IAM User Guide*.

An [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_groups.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_groups.html) specifies a collection of IAM users and makes permissions easier to manage for large sets of users. For more information, see [Use cases for IAM users](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/gs-identities-iam-users.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.

### IAM roles
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An *[IAM role](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles.html)* is an identity with specific permissions that provides temporary credentials. You can assume a role by [switching from a user to an IAM role (console)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_use_switch-role-console.html) or by calling an AWS CLI or AWS API operation. For more information, see [Methods to assume a role](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_manage-assume.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.

IAM roles are useful for federated user access, temporary IAM user permissions, cross-account access, cross-service access, and applications running on Amazon EC2. For more information, see [Cross account resource access in IAM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies-cross-account-resource-access.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.



## Managing access using policies
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You control access in AWS by creating policies and attaching them to AWS identities or resources. A policy is an object in AWS that, when associated with an identity or resource, defines their permissions. AWS evaluates these policies when a principal (user, root user, or role session) makes a request. Permissions in the policies determine whether the request is allowed or denied. Most policies are stored in AWS as JSON documents. For more information about the structure and contents of JSON policy documents, see [Overview of JSON policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies.html#access_policies-json) in the *IAM User Guide*.

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**.

Every IAM entity (user or role) starts with no permissions. By default, users can do nothing, not even change their own password. To give a user permission to do something, an administrator must attach a permissions policy to a user. Or the administrator can add the user to a group that has the intended permissions. When an administrator gives permissions to a group, all users in that group are granted those permissions.

IAM policies define permissions for an action regardless of the method that you use to perform the operation. For example, suppose that you have a policy that allows the `iam:GetRole` action. A user with that policy can get role information from the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API.

### Identity-based policies
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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 [Define custom IAM permissions with customer managed policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_create.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.

Identity-based policies can be further categorized as *inline policies* or *managed policies*. Inline policies are embedded directly into a single user, group, or role. Managed policies are standalone policies that you can attach to multiple users, groups, and roles in your AWS account. Managed policies include AWS managed policies and customer managed policies. To learn how to choose between a managed policy or an inline policy, see [Choosing between managed policies and inline policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_managed-vs-inline.html#choosing-managed-or-inline) in the *IAM User Guide*.

### Resource-based policies
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Resource-based policies are JSON policy documents that you attach to a resource. Examples of resource-based policies are IAM *role trust policies* and Amazon S3 *bucket policies*. 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](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_elements_principal.html) in a resource-based policy. Principals can include accounts, users, roles, federated users, or AWS services.

Resource-based policies are inline policies that are located in that service. You can't use AWS managed policies from IAM in a resource-based policy.

### Other policy types
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AWS supports additional, less-common policy types. These policy types can set the maximum permissions granted to you by the more common policy types. 
+ **Permissions boundaries** – A permissions boundary is an advanced feature in which you set the maximum permissions that an identity-based policy can grant to an IAM entity (IAM user or role). You can set a permissions boundary for an entity. The resulting permissions are the intersection of entity's identity-based policies and its permissions boundaries. Resource-based policies that specify the user or role in the `Principal` field are not limited by the permissions boundary. An explicit deny in any of these policies overrides the allow. For more information about permissions boundaries, see [Permissions boundaries for IAM entities](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_boundaries.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.
+ **Service control policies (SCPs)** – SCPs are JSON policies that specify the maximum permissions for an organization or organizational unit (OU) in AWS Organizations. AWS Organizations is a service for grouping and centrally managing multiple AWS accounts that your business owns. If you enable all features in an organization, then you can apply service control policies (SCPs) to any or all of your accounts. The SCP limits permissions for entities in member accounts, including each AWS account root user. For more information about Organizations and SCPs, see [How SCPs work](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_about-scps.html) in the *AWS Organizations User Guide*.
+ **Session policies** – Session policies are advanced policies that you pass as a parameter when you programmatically create a temporary session for a role or federated user. The resulting session's permissions are the intersection of the user or role's identity-based policies and the session policies. Permissions can also come from a resource-based policy. An explicit deny in any of these policies overrides the allow. For more information, see [Session policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies.html#policies_session) in the *IAM User Guide*. 

### Multiple policy types
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When multiple types of policies apply to a request, the resulting permissions are more complicated to understand. To learn how AWS determines whether to allow a request when multiple policy types are involved, see [Policy evaluation logic](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_evaluation-logic.html) in the *IAM User Guide*.