Troubleshooting and Resolving AWS IAM Errors

30 minutes
  • 4 Learning Objectives

About this Hands-on Lab

In this hands-on lab scenario, you are a security engineer working for a new startup that’s launching an online bookstore for rare and antique books. The founder, Kia, needs your help setting up her database administrators with the proper access permissions for the startup’s AWS account. In order to provide access and ensure the proper security measures are in place, you will use AWS Identity & Access Management (IAM) and attach the necessary AWS-managed policy that allows full access to Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).

Learning Objectives

Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:

Review Existing Policy Permissions for DBAGroup as an Administrator
  1. Log in to the AWS Management Console using cloud_user credentials.
  2. Navigate to IAM.
  3. In IAM Resources section, click User groups: 1.
  4. Click DBAGroup.
  5. Click the Permissions tab and click StudentRDSPolicy.
  6. Click Cancel to exit.
  7. Sign out as the cloud_user by clicking your account name on the top-right navigation bar and click Sign Out.
Access a Relational Database Instance as a DBA
  1. Click Log back in.
  2. Log in as dba-1. (NOTE: The credentials are located under the Additional Resources section)
  3. Navigate to Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).
  4. Click Create database.
  5. Note the access denied message. We need to modify DBAGroup permissions as an administrator to grant DBA access.
  6. Sign out by clicking your account name on the top navigation bar and clicking Sign Out.
Modify Permissions on the DBAGroup as an Administrator
  1. Click Log back in.
  2. Log in with the cloud_user credentials.
  3. Navigate to IAM.
  4. In IAM Resources section, click User groups: 1.
  5. Click DBAGroup.
  6. Click the Permissions tab.
  7. Click Add permissions to access the dropdown menu and click Attach Policies.
  8. In Other permission policies field, search for "rds".
  9. Select AmazonRDSFullAccess.
  10. Click Add permissions.
  11. Log out as the cloud_user by clicking your account name on the top-right navigation bar and clicking Sign Out.
Verify Relational Database Access as a DBA
  1. Click Log back in.
  2. Log back in as dba-1.
  3. Navigate to Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).
  4. Click Create database. (NOTE: The error message is gone.)

Additional Resources

Please log in to the lab environment with the credentials provided. Make sure you are using us-east-1 region throughout the lab.

When you need to log in as an administrator, use the cloud_user credentials.

When you need to log in as a Database Administrator (DBA), use dba-1 for the username and k6!AY36^5h1 for the password.

What are Hands-on Labs

Hands-on Labs are real environments created by industry experts to help you learn. These environments help you gain knowledge and experience, practice without compromising your system, test without risk, destroy without fear, and let you learn from your mistakes. Hands-on Labs: practice your skills before delivering in the real world.

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