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Cloud Computing · Foundational

IAM Role

AWS identity with permission policies that trusted principals assume to obtain temporary security credentials.

Definition

A role has a trust policy defining who can assume it (users, services, other accounts or federated identities) and permissions policies defining what it can do. Assuming a role through AWS STS returns short-lived credentials. Roles are used for EC2 instance profiles, Lambda execution, cross-account access and federation.

Example

A Lambda function's execution role allows it to write to a specific DynamoDB table.

Exam tip

Cross-account access and service-to-service permissions should use roles, never shared access keys.

Related terms