IAM Roles Anywhere and interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink)

You can establish a private connection between your VPC and AWS Identity and Access Management Roles Anywhere by creating an interface VPC endpoint. Interface endpoints are powered by AWS PrivateLink, a technology that enables you to privately access IAM Roles Anywhere APIs without an internet gateway, NAT device, VPN connection, or AWS Direct Connect connection. Instances in your VPC don't need public IP addresses to communicate with IAM Roles Anywhere APIs. Traffic between your VPC and IAM Roles Anywhere does not leave the Amazon network.

Each interface endpoint is represented by one or more Elastic Network Interfaces in your subnets.

For more information, see Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Considerations for IAM Roles Anywhere VPC endpoints

Before you set up an interface VPC endpoint for IAM Roles Anywhere, ensure that you review Interface endpoint properties and limitations in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

IAM Roles Anywhere supports making calls to all of its API actions from your VPC.

VPC endpoint policies are supported for all IAM Roles Anywhere API methods, including CreateSession. Full access to IAM Roles Anywhere is allowed through the endpoint by default. For more information, see Controlling access to services with VPC endpoints in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Creating an interface VPC endpoint for IAM Roles Anywhere

You can create a VPC endpoint for the IAM Roles Anywhere service using either the Amazon VPC console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). For more information, see Creating an interface endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Create a VPC endpoint for IAM Roles Anywhere using the following service name:

If you enable private DNS for the endpoint, you can make API requests to IAM Roles Anywhere using its default DNS name for the Region, for example, rolesanywhere.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.

For more information, see Accessing a service through an interface endpoint in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Creating a VPC endpoint policy for IAM Roles Anywhere

You can attach an endpoint policy to your VPC endpoint that controls access to IAM Roles Anywhere. The policy specifies the following information:

For more information, see Controlling access to services with VPC endpoints in the Amazon VPC User Guide.

Example: VPC endpoint policy for IAM Roles Anywhere actions

The following is an example of an endpoint policy for IAM Roles Anywhere. When attached to an endpoint, this policy grants access to the listed IAM Roles Anywhere actions for all principals on all resources.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "rolesanywhere:CreateTrustAnchor",
            "rolesanywhere:CreateProfile",
            "rolesanywhere:UpdateProfile"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      }
   ]
}

VPC endpoint policy for CreateSession

When creating a VPC endpoint policy for the CreateSession action, you must specify * as the principal, as the policy is evaluated before the certificate-based authentication is complete. As a result, consider specifying trust anchor ARNs in the Resource element. Additionally, condition keys are available, extracted from the X.509 certificate. These keys follow the same format as the principal tags referenced in The IAM Roles Anywhere trust model, but using rolesanywhere: as a prefix instead of aws:PrincipalTag/.

Trust anchor resources use the following ARN format:

arn:aws:rolesanywhere:region:account-id:trust-anchor/trust-anchor-id

You can use wildcards to allow access to multiple trust anchors, or specify individual trust anchor ARNs for more restrictive access control.

VPC endpoint policy for CreateSession with a specific trust anchor

The following is an example of an endpoint policy for CreateSession that restricts access to a specific trust anchor. When attached to an endpoint, this policy grants access to the CreateSession action only for the specified trust anchor.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":"rolesanywhere:CreateSession",
         "Resource":"arn:aws:rolesanywhere:us-west-2:111122223333:trust-anchor/aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd-eeeeeeeeeeee"
      }
   ]
}

This policy allows CreateSession operations only for the specified trust anchor. Replace the example ARN with your actual trust anchor ARN. This configuration provides the most restrictive access control, limiting session creation to a specific trust anchor.

VPC endpoint policy for CreateSession with wildcard trust anchors

The following is an example of an endpoint policy for CreateSession that allows access to all trust anchors in a specific region and account. When attached to an endpoint, this policy grants access to the CreateSession action for any trust anchor in the specified region and account.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":"rolesanywhere:CreateSession",
         "Resource":"arn:aws:rolesanywhere:us-west-2:111122223333:trust-anchor/*"
      }
   ]
}

This policy allows CreateSession operations for all trust anchors in the specified region and account. This is useful when you want to control access at the VPC level without restricting specific trust anchors. Replace the region and account ID with your values.

VPC endpoint policy for CreateSession with certificate attribute conditions

The following is an example of an endpoint policy for CreateSession that uses condition keys based on X.509 certificate attributes. When attached to an endpoint, this policy grants access to the CreateSession action only when the authenticating certificate's Common Name matches the specified value.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":"rolesanywhere:CreateSession",
         "Resource":"arn:aws:rolesanywhere:us-west-2:111122223333:trust-anchor/*",
         "Condition":{
            "StringEquals":{
               "rolesanywhere:x509Subject/CN":"Bob"
            }
         }
      }
   ]
}

This policy allows CreateSession operations for all trust anchors but only when the X.509 certificate's Common Name (CN) matches Bob. IAM Roles Anywhere extracts attributes from the authenticating certificate and makes them available as condition keys. You can use these keys in condition statements to further restrict access based on certificate properties. Replace Bob with your required CN value.

Other X.509 certificate attributes are also available as condition keys, including:

You can use any X.509 subject or issuer attribute as a condition key to create fine-grained access control policies based on certificate properties.

VPC endpoint policy combining CreateSession and management operations

Because the Principal required for CreateSession is *, consider adding two separate statements to the policy. The following is an example of an endpoint policy that combines multiple statements to control different types of access. This policy allows any principal to call CreateSession with trust anchor conditions, while restricting management operations to a specific IAM principal.

{
   "Statement":[
      {
         "Principal":"*",
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":"rolesanywhere:CreateSession",
         "Resource":"arn:aws:rolesanywhere:us-west-2:111122223333:trust-anchor/*",
         "Condition":{
            "StringEquals":{
               "rolesanywhere:x509Subject/OU":"Development"
            }
         }
      },
      {
         "Principal":{
            "AWS":"arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/RolesAnywhereAdmin"
         },
         "Effect":"Allow",
         "Action":[
            "rolesanywhere:CreateTrustAnchor",
            "rolesanywhere:UpdateTrustAnchor",
            "rolesanywhere:CreateProfile",
            "rolesanywhere:UpdateProfile"
         ],
         "Resource":"*"
      }
   ]
}

This policy demonstrates a common pattern for separating session creation from administrative operations. The first statement allows any workload with a certificate from ExampleCorp to create sessions through the VPC endpoint, while the second statement restricts trust anchor and profile management to a specific IAM role. This approach provides broad access for authentication while maintaining tight control over configuration changes. Replace the organization name, region, account ID, and IAM role ARN with your values.