Identity Federation for AWS is a foundational Amazon Web Services (AWS) integration add-on that provides Temporary AWS 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.

On this page:

AWS Security Credentials Variations

The add-on currently supports the following Principal Types:

Capabilities and Restrictions

Each Principal Type has different capabilities and restrictions regarding Single Sign-On (SSO) to the AWS Management Console, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and calling the IAM and STS APIs in turn, see Comparing Features of AWS STS APIs for details.

Principal Type	AWS Documentation	API action	Credential lifetime (min/max/default)	Notes
Federated User	Temporary Security Credentials to Enable Access for Federated Users	`GetFederationToken`	IAM user: 15m/36hr/12hr Root account: 15m/1hr/1hr
IAM User	Temporary Security Credentials to Enable Access for IAM Users	`GetSessionToken`	IAM user: 15m/36hr/12hr Root account: 15m/1hr/1hr
IAM Role	Temporary Security Credentials for Delegating API Access	`AssumeRole`	15m/1hr/1hr
SAML Federation	Temporary Security Credentials for SAML Federation	`AssumeRoleWithSAML`	15m/1hr/1hr	Support for SAML is not on our roadmap, see the resp. FAQ for details

AWS Connector Management

Create Connector

In order to enable the desired access to your AWS resources, you need to create at least one AWS Connector. You can access this functionality via the AWS Connectors management screen:

Create/Edit Connector

Clicking Create Connector (or Edit later on) opens the Edit AWS Connector dialog:

Here are the required steps:

Select the account to use (you might need to add accounts first)
Choose this Connector's name

Choose the Principal Type - there are the following choices currently:

Principal Type Explanation Learn more at AWS

Principal Type	Explanation	Learn more at AWS
Federated User	Yields temporary AWS security credentials for a federated user with the Atlassian user name and an optional IAM Policy (if absent, AWS applies a default) In order to use the Federated User principal type, you need to Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials! The following example shows a policy that grants permission to access the AWS STS `GetFederationToken` API - you need to add it to the long-term AWS security credentials you are about to use for federation (i.e. not here in this AWS Connector dialog): { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [{ "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "sts:GetFederationToken", "Resource": "" }] } Federated User* does not allow to access IAM or STS APIs, for example when creating IAM resources via CloudFormation - use or Assume Role for these scenarios instead.	Permissions for GetFederationToken Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials
Assume Role	Yields temporary AWS security credentials for an assumed role with the Atlassian user name and an optional External ID and an optional IAM Policy (if absent, AWS applies a default) In order to use the Assume Role principal type, you need to Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials! The following example shows a policy that grants permission to access the AWS STS `AssumeRole` API - you need to add it to the long-term AWS security credentials you are about to use for federation (i.e. not here in this AWS Connector dialog): { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [{ "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "sts:AssumeRole", "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123123123123:role/UpdateAPP" }] }	Permissions for AssumeRole Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials
Account (IAM User)	Yields temporary AWS security credentials for the selected IAM user (recommended) or AWS account (disadvised) itself Account (IAM User) does not allow to specify IAM policies or distinguish users - use Federated User or Assume Role for these scenarios instead.	Permissions for GetSessionToken

Federated User

Yields temporary AWS security credentials for a federated user with the Atlassian user name and an optional IAM Policy (if absent, AWS applies a default)

In order to use the Federated User principal type, you need to Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials! The following example shows a policy that grants permission to access the AWS STS GetFederationToken API - you need to add it to the long-term AWS security credentials you are about to use for federation (i.e. not here in this AWS Connector dialog):

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "sts:GetFederationToken",
    "Resource": "*"
  }]
}

Federated User does not allow to access IAM or STS APIs, for example when creating IAM resources via CloudFormation - use or Assume Role for these scenarios instead.

Permissions for GetFederationToken

Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials

Assume Role

Yields temporary AWS security credentials for an assumed role with the Atlassian user name and an optional External ID and an optional IAM Policy (if absent, AWS applies a default)

In order to use the Assume Role principal type, you need to Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials! The following example shows a policy that grants permission to access the AWS STS AssumeRole API - you need to add it to the long-term AWS security credentials you are about to use for federation (i.e. not here in this AWS Connector dialog):

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::123123123123:role/UpdateAPP"
  }]
}

Permissions for AssumeRole

Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials

Account (IAM User)

Yields temporary AWS security credentials for the selected IAM user (recommended) or AWS account (disadvised) itself

Account (IAM User) does not allow to specify IAM policies or distinguish users - use Federated User or Assume Role for these scenarios instead.

Permissions for GetSessionToken

(Optional) Add an IAM Policy (only available for principal types Federated User and Assume Role)
(Optional) Set the maximum number of seconds temporary credentials based on this connector can be valid - leave empty to use AWS default values
(Optional) Grant the permission to use this Connector to one or more of your JIRA or Bamboo groups

Administrators always have permission to use all Connectors.
1. click into the selection box to search for groups
- - Bamboo < 5.6 and JIRA < 6.2 feature a different user interface for group selection still, see UAA-89 - Getting issue details... STATUS for details.
1. if there are up to 100 groups, they show up immediately
2. if there are more than 100 groups, you need to type at least one character to make all matching groups appear
  - depending on the number of groups and naming scheme, frequently used characters like 'e' might still yield slightly sluggish behavior (depends on browser and system performance etc.), see below in case
3. you can type more characters to filter down the search result - typing quickly should circumvent sluggishness with a very large number of groups, if any
4. select each desired group
- - all changes persist on save of the connector only
(Optional) Select System Scope to allow usage of this AWS Connector from elevated code without an active user session (e.g. by another add-on like Tasks for AWS).

Add/Edit Account

In order to create AWS Connectors, you need to add the at least one account resp. IAM User, which provides the required long-term AWS security credentials used to derive temporary AWS security credentials for your Atlassian users, see Create individual users for getting started with this approach.

Required IAM Permissions

In order to use the Federated User or Assume Role principal types, you need to Grant an IAM Group Permission to Create Temporary Credentials! See the Principal Types table above for details.

Accounts are added/edited/deleted inline while creating/editing an AWS Connector. All fields are required, you can select an arbitrary name according to your needs.

Editing an existing account will change it for all AWS Connectors using it.

Clicking Create Account (or Edit later on) opens the Edit Account (IAM User) dialog:

Configuring an AWS Connector with (optional) IAM Policy and Atlassian user 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 (optional) 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).

IAM Policy Examples

Clicking on 'IAM Policy Examples' allows you to select from a few example policies to ease getting started (just click one to copy it to the policy field) - links to the AWS Policy Generator and the IAM Policy Simulator are also provided:

Advanced Topics

The following topics are applicable to advanced scenarios only: