# How AWS CloudTrail works with IAM Before you use IAM to manage access to CloudTrail, learn what IAM features are available to use with CloudTrail. **IAM features you can use with AWS CloudTrail** | IAM feature | CloudTrail support | | --- | --- | | [Identity-based policies](#security_iam_service-with-iam-id-based-policies) | Yes | | [Resource-based policies](#security_iam_service-with-iam-resource-based-policies) | Partial | | [Policy actions](#security_iam_service-with-iam-id-based-policies-actions) | Yes | | [Policy resources](#security_iam_service-with-iam-id-based-policies-resources) | Yes | | [Policy condition keys (service-specific)](#security_iam_service-with-iam-id-based-policies-conditionkeys) | No | | [ACLs](#security_iam_service-with-iam-acls) | No | | [ABAC (tags in policies)](#security_iam_service-with-iam-tags) | Yes | | [Temporary credentials](#security_iam_service-with-iam-roles-tempcreds) | Yes | | [Forward access sessions (FAS)](#security_iam_service-with-iam-principal-permissions) | Yes | | [Service roles](#security_iam_service-with-iam-roles-service) | Yes | | [Service-linked roles](#security_iam_service-with-iam-roles-service-linked) | Yes | To get a high-level view of how CloudTrail and other AWS services work with most IAM features, see [AWS services that work with IAM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_aws-services-that-work-with-iam.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. ## Identity-based policies for CloudTrail Identity-based policies **Supports identity-based policies:** Yes Identity-based policies are JSON permissions policy documents that you can attach to an identity, such as an IAM user, group of users, or role. These policies control what actions users and roles can perform, on which resources, and under what conditions. To learn how to create an identity-based policy, see [Define custom IAM permissions with customer managed policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_create.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. With IAM identity-based policies, you can specify allowed or denied actions and resources as well as the conditions under which actions are allowed or denied. To learn about all of the elements that you can use in a JSON policy, see [IAM JSON policy elements reference](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_elements.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. ### Identity-based policy examples for CloudTrail To view examples of CloudTrail identity-based policies, see [Identity-based policy examples for AWS CloudTrail](security_iam_id-based-policy-examples.md). ## Resource-based policies within CloudTrail Resource-based policies **Supports resource-based policies:** Partial Resource-based policies are JSON policy documents that you attach to a resource. Examples of resource-based policies are IAM *role trust policies* and Amazon S3 *bucket policies*. In services that support resource-based policies, service administrators can use them to control access to a specific resource. For the resource where the policy is attached, the policy defines what actions a specified principal can perform on that resource and under what conditions. You must [specify a principal](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_elements_principal.html) in a resource-based policy. Principals can include accounts, users, roles, federated users, or AWS services. To enable cross-account access, you can specify an entire account or IAM entities in another account as the principal in a resource-based policy. For more information, see [Cross account resource access in IAM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies-cross-account-resource-access.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. CloudTrail supports the following types of resource-based policies: + Resource-based policies on channels used for CloudTrail Lake integrations with event sources outside of AWS. The resource-based policy for the channel defines which principal entities (accounts, users, roles, and federated users) can call `PutAuditEvents` on the channel to deliver events to the destination event data store. For more information about creating integrations with CloudTrail Lake, see [Create an integration with an event source outside of AWS](query-event-data-store-integration.md). + Resource-based polices to control which principals can perform actions on your event data store. You can use resource-based policies to provide cross-account access to your event data stores. + Resource-based policies on dashboards to allow CloudTrail to refresh a CloudTrail Lake dashboard at the interval you define when you set a refresh schedule for a dashboard. For more information, see [Set a refresh schedule for a custom dashboard with the CloudTrail console](lake-dashboard-refresh.md). ### Examples To view examples of CloudTrail resource-based policies, see [AWS CloudTrail resource-based policy examples](security_iam_resource-based-policy-examples.md). ## Policy actions for CloudTrail Policy actions **Supports policy actions:** Yes Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which **principal** can perform **actions** on what **resources**, and under what **conditions**. The `Action` element of a JSON policy describes the actions that you can use to allow or deny access in a policy. Include actions in a policy to grant permissions to perform the associated operation. To see a list of CloudTrail actions, see [Actions Defined by AWS CloudTrail](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/list_awscloudtrail.html#awscloudtrail-actions-as-permissions) in the *Service Authorization Reference*. Policy actions in CloudTrail use the following prefix before the action: ``` cloudtrail ``` For example, to grant someone permission to list tags for a trail with the `ListTags` API operation, you include the `cloudtrail:ListTags` action in their policy. Policy statements must include either an `Action` or `NotAction` element. CloudTrail defines its own set of actions that describe tasks that you can perform with this service. To specify multiple actions in a single statement, separate them with commas as follows: ``` "Action": [ "cloudtrail:AddTags", "cloudtrail:ListTags", "cloudtrail:RemoveTags ``` You can specify multiple actions using wildcards (`*`). For example, to specify all actions that begin with the word `Get`, include the following action: ``` "Action": "cloudtrail:Get*" ``` ## Policy resources for CloudTrail Policy resources **Supports policy resources:** Yes Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which **principal** can perform **actions** on what **resources**, and under what **conditions**. The `Resource` JSON policy element specifies the object or objects to which the action applies. As a best practice, specify a resource using its [Amazon Resource Name (ARN)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference-arns.html). For actions that don't support resource-level permissions, use a wildcard (\$1) to indicate that the statement applies to all resources. ``` "Resource": "*" ``` To see a list of CloudTrail resource types and their ARNs, see [Resources Defined by AWS CloudTrail](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/list_awscloudtrail.html#awscloudtrail-resources-for-iam-policies) in the *Service Authorization Reference*. To learn with which actions you can specify the ARN of each resource, see [Actions Defined by AWS CloudTrail](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/list_awscloudtrail.html#awscloudtrail-actions-as-permissions). In CloudTrail, there are four resource types: trails, event data stores, dashboards, and channels. Each resource has a unique Amazon Resource Name (ARN) associated with it. In a policy, you use an ARN to identify the resource that the policy applies to. CloudTrail does not currently support other resource types, which are sometimes referred to as subresources. The CloudTrail trail resource has the following ARN: ``` arn:${Partition}:cloudtrail:${Region}:${Account}:trail/{TrailName} ``` The CloudTrail event data store resource has the following ARN: ``` arn:${Partition}:cloudtrail:${Region}:${Account}:eventdatastore/{EventDataStoreId} ``` The CloudTrail dashboard resource has the following ARN: ``` arn:${Partition}:cloudtrail:${Region}:${Account}:dashboard/{DashboardName} ``` The CloudTrail channel resource has the following ARN: ``` arn:${Partition}:cloudtrail:${Region}:${Account}:channel/{ChannelId} ``` For more information about the format of ARNs, see [Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) and AWS Service Namespaces](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-arns-and-namespaces.html). For example, for an AWS account with the ID *123456789012*, to specify a trail named *My-Trail* that exists in the US East (Ohio) Region in your statement, use the following ARN: ``` "Resource": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/My-Trail" ``` To specify all trails that belong to a specific account in that AWS Region, use the wildcard (\$1): ``` "Resource": "arn:aws:cloudtrail:us-east-2:123456789012:trail/*" ``` Some CloudTrail actions, such as those for creating resources, can't be performed on a specific resource. In those cases, you must use the wildcard (`*`). ``` "Resource": "*" ``` Many CloudTrail API actions involve multiple resources. For example, `CreateTrail` requires an Amazon S3 bucket for storing log files, so a user must have permissions to write to the bucket. To specify multiple resources in a single statement, separate the ARNs with commas. ``` "Resource": [ "resource1", "resource2" ``` ## Policy condition keys for CloudTrail Policy condition keys **Supports service-specific policy condition keys:** No Administrators can use AWS JSON policies to specify who has access to what. That is, which **principal** can perform **actions** on what **resources**, and under what **conditions**. The `Condition` element specifies when statements execute based on defined criteria. You can create conditional expressions that use [condition operators](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_elements_condition_operators.html), such as equals or less than, to match the condition in the policy with values in the request. To see all AWS global condition keys, see [AWS global condition context keys](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_condition-keys.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. CloudTrail doesn't define its own condition keys, but it supports using some global condition keys. To see all AWS global condition keys, see [AWS Global Condition Context Keys](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_condition-keys.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. To see a list of CloudTrail condition keys, see [Condition Keys for AWS CloudTrail](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/list_awscloudtrail.html#awscloudtrail-policy-keys) in the *Service Authorization Reference*. To learn with which actions and resources you can use a condition key, see [Actions Defined by AWS CloudTrail](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/list_awscloudtrail.html#awscloudtrail-actions-as-permissions). ## ACLs in CloudTrail ACLs **Supports ACLs:** No Access control lists (ACLs) control which principals (account members, users, or roles) have permissions to access a resource. ACLs are similar to resource-based policies, although they do not use the JSON policy document format. ## ABAC with CloudTrail ABAC **Supports ABAC (tags in policies):** Yes Attribute-based access control (ABAC) is an authorization strategy that defines permissions based on attributes called tags. You can attach tags to IAM entities and AWS resources, then design ABAC policies to allow operations when the principal's tag matches the tag on the resource. To control access based on tags, you provide tag information in the [condition element](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_policies_elements_condition.html) of a policy using the `aws:ResourceTag/key-name`, `aws:RequestTag/key-name`, or `aws:TagKeys` condition keys. If a service supports all three condition keys for every resource type, then the value is **Yes** for the service. If a service supports all three condition keys for only some resource types, then the value is **Partial**. For more information about ABAC, see [Define permissions with ABAC authorization](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/introduction_attribute-based-access-control.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. To view a tutorial with steps for setting up ABAC, see [Use attribute-based access control (ABAC)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/tutorial_attribute-based-access-control.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. You can attach tags to CloudTrail resources or pass tags in a request to CloudTrail. For more information about tagging CloudTrail resources, see [Creating a trail with the CloudTrail console](cloudtrail-create-a-trail-using-the-console-first-time.md) and [Creating, updating, and managing trails with the AWS CLI](cloudtrail-create-and-update-a-trail-by-using-the-aws-cli.md). ## Using temporary credentials with CloudTrail Temporary credentials **Supports temporary credentials:** Yes Temporary credentials provide short-term access to AWS resources and are automatically created when you use federation or switch roles. AWS recommends that you dynamically generate temporary credentials instead of using long-term access keys. For more information, see [Temporary security credentials in IAM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_temp.html) and [AWS services that work with IAM](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/reference_aws-services-that-work-with-iam.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. ## Forward access sessions for CloudTrail Forward access sessions **Supports forward access sessions (FAS):** Yes Forward access sessions (FAS) use the permissions of the principal calling an AWS service, combined with the requesting AWS service to make requests to downstream services. For policy details when making FAS requests, see [Forward access sessions](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_forward_access_sessions.html). ## Service roles for CloudTrail Service roles **Supports service roles:** Yes A service role is an [IAM role](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles.html) that a service assumes to perform actions on your behalf. An IAM administrator can create, modify, and delete a service role from within IAM. For more information, see [Create a role to delegate permissions to an AWS service](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_create_for-service.html) in the *IAM User Guide*. **Warning** Changing the permissions for a service role might break CloudTrail functionality. Edit service roles only when CloudTrail provides guidance to do so. ## Service-linked roles for CloudTrail Service-linked roles **Supports service-linked roles:** Yes A service-linked role is a type of service role that is linked to an AWS service. The service can assume the role to perform an action on your behalf. Service-linked roles appear in your AWS account and are owned by the service. An IAM administrator can view, but not edit the permissions for service-linked roles. CloudTrail supports a service-linked role for integration with AWS Organizations. This role is required for the creation of an organization trail or event data store. Organization trails and event data stores log events for all AWS accounts in an organization. For more information about creating or managing CloudTrail service-linked roles, see [Using service-linked roles for CloudTrail](using-service-linked-roles.md).