The Top 20 Most Viewed AWS IAM Documentation Pages in 2016

The following 20 pages were the most viewed AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) documentation pages in 2016. I have included a brief description with each link to give you a clearer idea of what each page covers. Use this list to see what other people have been viewing and perhaps to pique your own interest about a topic you’ve been meaning to research.

1. What Is IAM?
   IAM is a web service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources for your users. You use IAM to control who can use your AWS resources (authentication) and what resources they can use and in what ways (authorization).
2. Creating an IAM User in Your AWS Account
   You can create one or more IAM users in your AWS account. You might create an IAM user when someone joins your organization, or when you have a new application that needs to make API calls to AWS.
3. The IAM Console and the Sign-in Page
   This page provides information about the IAM-enabled AWS Management Console sign-in page and explains how to create a unique sign-in URL for your account.
4. How Users Sign In to Your Account
   After you create IAM users and passwords for each, users can sign in to the AWS Management Console for your AWS account with a special URL.
5. IAM Best Practices
   To help secure your AWS resources, follow these recommendations for IAM.
6. IAM Policy Elements Reference
   This page describes the elements that you can use in an IAM policy. The elements are listed here in the general order you use them in a policy.
7. Managing Access Keys for IAM Users
   Users need their own access keys to make programmatic calls to AWS from the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), Tools for Windows PowerShell, the AWS SDKs, or direct HTTP calls using the APIs for individual AWS services. To fill this need, you can create, modify, view, or rotate access keys (access key IDs and secret access keys) for IAM users.
8. Working with Server Certificates
   Some AWS services can use server certificates that you manage with IAM or AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). In many cases, we recommend that you use ACM to provision, manage, and deploy your SSL/TLS certificates.
9. Your AWS Account ID and Its Alias
   Learn how to find your AWS account ID number and its alias.
10. Overview of IAM Policies
    This page provides an overview of IAM policies. A policy is a document that formally states one or more permissions.
11. Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in AWS
    For increased security, we recommend that you configure MFA to help protect your AWS resources. MFA adds extra security because it requires users to enter a unique authentication code from an approved authentication device or SMS text message when they access AWS websites or services.
12. Example Policies for Administering AWS Resources
    This page shows some examples of policies that control access to resources in AWS services.
13. Using an IAM Role to Grant Permissions to Applications Running on Amazon EC2 Instances
    Use an IAM role to manage temporary credentials for applications that run on an EC2 instance. When you use a role, you do not have to distribute long-term credentials to an EC2 instance. Instead, the role supplies temporary permissions that applications can use when they make calls to other AWS resources.
14. IAM Roles
    An IAM role is similar to a user, in that it is an AWS identity with permission policies that determine what the identity can and cannot do in AWS. However, instead of being uniquely associated with one person, a role is intended to be assumable by anyone who needs it.
15. Enabling a Virtual MFA Device
    A virtual MFA device uses a software application to generate a six-digit authentication code that is compatible with the time-based one-time password (TOTP) standard, as described in RFC 6238. The app can run on mobile hardware devices, including smartphones.
16. Creating Your First IAM Admin User and Group
    This procedure describes how to create an IAM group named Administrators, grant the group full permissions for all AWS services, and then create an administrative IAM user for yourself by adding the user to the Administrators group.
17. Using Instance Profiles
    An instance profile is a container for an IAM role that you can use to pass role information to an EC2 instance when the instance starts.
18. Working with Server Certificates
    After you obtain or create a server certificate, you upload it to IAM so that other AWS services can use it. You might also need to get certificate information, rename or delete a certificate, or perform other management tasks.
19. Temporary Security Credentials
    You can use the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to create and provide trusted users with temporary security credentials that can control access to your AWS resources. Temporary security credentials work almost identically to the long-term access key credentials that your IAM users can use.
20. Setting an Account Password Policy for IAM Users
    You can set a password policy on your AWS account to specify complexity requirements and mandatory rotation periods for your IAM users’ passwords.

In the “Comments” section below, let us know if you would like to see anything on these or other IAM documentation pages expanded or updated to make the documentation more useful for you.

– Dave