Identity Federation for AWS is mainly a system integration and API Add-on that provides Temporary Security Credentials to Atlassian groups and enables access control to AWS Resources via Identity and Access Management (IAM) Policies - from a technical perspective it implements an Identity Broker/Token Vendor that uses the Atlassian Authentication System (Crowd) to Grant Access to AWS Resources.
Temporary Security Credential Variations
On this page:
AWS Connector Management
In order to enable the desired access to your AWS resources you need to configure at least one AWS Connector. You can access this functionality via the AWS Connector management screen:
Adding an account (IAM user)
An account resp. IAM User provides the required secret credentials which the Add-on uses to derive the temporary AWS credentials for your Atlassian users, see Create individual users for getting started with this approach.
Required IAM Permissions
Accounts are added/edited/deleted inline while adding/editing an AWS Connector. All fields are required, you can select an arbitrary name according to your needs.
Configuring an AWS Connector with IAM Policy and JIRA group selection
Once you have added at least one account (see above) you can configure an arbitrary number of AWS Connectors using these. A Connector requires an arbitrary name according to your needs, the account to use and an IAM Policy, see Overview of Policies. You can reuse existing policies already in use in your organization or create new policies tailored to your use case via the AWS Policy Generator.
While not required, you might want to grant one or more of your Atlassian user groups the permission to use the AWS Connector (if no group is selected, only administrators will be able to use it).