How to create User Group in AWS IAM

In this blog, you will learn how to create User Group in AWS IAM, enhancing security, simplifying user management, and streamlining permissions for efficient cloud resource management.

Table of Contents

Significance of Creating User Group

Setting up user groups in AWS IAM is very important for a number of reasons:

Simplified Permissions Management: You can give permissions to a group instead of giving permissions to each person individually. This speeds up the process and makes mistakes less likely.
Consistent Access Control: Groups make sure that all users in a group have the same amount of access. This keeps permission policies consistent.
Scalability: Managing permissions for groups of users is easier to scale and handle as the number of users grows than managing rights for each individual user.
Efficient User Onboarding and Offboarding: It is easier to add new users to a group or remove existing ones. This makes sure that users get or lose entry permissions quickly and correctly.
Better security: If you manage permissions at the group level, it’s easier to follow the principle of least privilege and make sure that users only have the entry rights they need.

Note :

You can create 300 groups per account. If you want to increase you have to use the AWS services like Service Quotas.

You can create 10 IAM groups per user.
You can create 10 managed policies per group.

Steps to create User group in AWS IAM

In the previous blog we have learned about how to create user in AWS IAM. Now we will create user group.

First you have to click on user groups and then click on Create group.

Give the group a name and add users to the group.

After that you have to attach some permission such as AmazonAthenaFullAccess to that group. You can choose any based on your use case. After that click on Create user group.

Now you have successfully created the user group.

If you tap on group you can see its details about the users and the services or Policies attached to it.

In the access advisor you can analyze and manage the permissions of IAM users and roles in your AWS account. It shows the following information such as

Access Advisor helps you figure out which services a user or role has used lately and which permission they may not need.
The Access Advisor gives a timestamp for each service that has been used to show when it was last used. When the permission is not needed it will revoke the permission because it follows the principal of least privilege.
With the help of this you can improve the security by removing unnecessary permissions and minimizing the risk associated with overly permissive access rights.

How to create user groups with Command line interface (CLI)

You can create the IAM group using commands line also by using create-group function

aws iam create-group --group-name CSE

After that you can add or remove users from the group.

# How to add users to a group
aws iam add-user-to-group --user-name Alice --group-name CSE

# How to remove users from a group
aws iam remove-user-from-group --user-name Alice --group-name CSE

At last you can delete the group by using this commands

aws iam delete-group --group-name CSE

Conclusion

In conclusion, creating user groups in AWS IAM is crucial for efficient permissions management, enhanced security, and operational scalability. By leveraging groups, you ensure consistent access control, simplify user administration, and streamline compliance and auditing processes. Now in the upcoming blogs we will talk about roles, policies and many more things related to Identity and Access management.

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