Using service-linked roles for Ground Station

AWS Ground Station 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 Ground Station. Service-linked roles are predefined by Ground Station and include all the permissions that the service requires to call other AWS services on your behalf.

A service-linked role makes setting up Ground Station easier because you don’t have to manually add the necessary permissions. Ground Station defines the permissions of its service-linked roles, and unless defined otherwise, only Ground Station 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.

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 roles column. Choose a Yes with a link to view the service-linked role documentation for that service.

Service-linked role permissions for Ground Station

Ground Station uses the service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForGroundStationDataflowEndpointGroup – AWS GroundStation uses this service-linked role to invoke EC2 to find public IPv4 addresses.

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

The role permissions policy named AWSServiceRoleForGroundStationDataflowEndpointGroupPolicy allows Ground Station to complete the following actions on the specified resources:

You must configure permissions to allow an IAM entity (such as a user, group, or role) to create, edit, or delete a service-linked role. For more information, see Service-linked role permissions in the IAM User Guide.

Creating a service-linked role for Ground Station

You don't need to manually create a service-linked role. When you create a DataflowEndpointGroup in the AWS CLI or the AWS API, Ground Station 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 DataflowEndpointGroup, Ground Station creates the service-linked role for you again.

You can also use the IAM console to create a service-linked role with the Data Delivery to Amazon EC2 use case. In the AWS CLI or the AWS API, create a service-linked role with the groundstation.amazonaws.com service name. For more information, see Creating a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide. If you delete this service-linked role, you can use this same process to create the role again.

Editing a service-linked role for Ground Station

Ground Station does not allow you to edit the AWSServiceRoleForGroundStationDataflowEndpointGroup 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 Ground Station

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.

You can delete a service-linked role only after first deleting the DataflowEndpointGroups using the service-linked role. This protects you from inadvertently revoking permissions to your DataflowEndpointGroups. If a service-linked role is used with multiple DataflowEndpointGroups, you must delete all DataflowEndpointGroups that use the service-linked role before you can delete it.

To manually delete the service-linked role using IAM

Use the IAM console, the AWS CLI, or the AWS API to delete the AWSServiceRoleForGroundStationDataflowEndpointGroup service-linked role. For more information, see Deleting a service-linked role in the IAM User Guide.

Supported regions for Ground Station service-linked roles

Ground Station supports using service-linked roles in all of the regions where the service is available. For more information, see Region Table.

Troubleshooting

NOT_AUTHORIZED_TO_CREATE_SLR - This indicates the role in your account that is being used to call the CreateDataflowEndpointGroup API does not have the iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission. An administrator with the iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole permission must manually create the Service-Linked Role for your account.