← Amazon Web Services (AWS) learning pathAmazon Web Services (AWS) · Module 2 of 10
IAM: identity and access
Control who can do what in your AWS account.
📖 Key ideas
- IAM manages users, groups, roles and policies.
- Never use the root user for daily work; enable MFA on it.
- Policies are JSON documents allowing or denying actions.
- Roles give temporary credentials to services (EC2, Lambda).
- Follow least privilege.
💡 Real-life example: IAM is a building's access card system: each card opens only the doors it should.
IAM userIdentity for a person or app
IAM roleAssumable identity with temporary credentials
PolicyJSON permission document
MFAMulti-factor authentication