AWS IAM Roles Explained

Key Takeaways

Now, the final identity I want to talk about is roles. Now, just like we can assign a policy to a user, we can assign a policy to a role. So, what is the purpose of a role? Well, a role allows a user to assume it. So, what that means is the user can temporarily act like that role. And when he assumes a role, what happens is he inherits the permissions of the role. So, maybe the user by default doesn't have a lot of permissions, but while he's assuming the role, he gets to inherit more permissions to be able to perform other actions. And then once he's done, he can then revert back to his original policies and permissions. I like to think of a role kind of like when you have a family. And so, normally in the family, the parents are responsible for making all the decisions. The father or the mother or both of them are in charge. But, let's say that the parents go out on a dinner. Well, while they're out, the oldest son decides to assume the role as the parent. So, now he's kind of responsible for all of the children. He gets to make all the decisions. He gets to decide what they eat, what time they go to bed. And then once the parents come back, he gives that role right back up and he goes back to being a child. So, that's kind of how a role works. It just allows you to assume or borrow permissions of that role for a short period of time. And so, IAM roles are recommended when you need to grant access to a service on a temporary basis. All right, you need to know that for the exam. So, usually when you want to grant permissions or access to a service for a short period of time or temporary basis, you can use roles for that.