Terraform Module to provision a basic IAM system user suitable for CI/CD Systems (e.g. TravisCI, CircleCI) or systems which are external to AWS that cannot leverage AWS IAM Instance Profiles or AWS OIDC.

We do not recommend creating IAM users this way for any other purpose.

By default, IAM users, groups, and roles have no access to AWS resources. IAM policies are the means by which privileges are granted to users, groups, or roles. It is recommended that IAM policies be applied directly to groups and roles but not users. This module intentionally attaches an IAM policy directly to the user and does not use groups

The IAM user name is constructed using terraform-null-label and some input is required. The simplest input is name. By default the name will be converted to lower case and all non-alphanumeric characters except for hyphen will be removed. See the documentation for terraform-null-label to learn how to override these defaults if desired.

If an AWS Access Key is created, it is stored either in SSM Parameter Store or is provided as a module output, but not both. Using SSM Parameter Store is recommended because module outputs are stored in plaintext in the Terraform state file.

Tip

👽 Use Atmos with Terraform

Cloud Posse uses atmos to easily orchestrate multiple environments using Terraform.
Works with Github Actions, Atlantis, or Spacelift.

Watch demo of using Atmos with Terraform

Example of running atmos to manage infrastructure from our Quick Start tutorial.

Usage

module "circleci" {
  source = "cloudposse/iam-system-user/aws"
  # Cloud Posse recommends pinning every module to a specific version
  # version     = "x.x.x"
  namespace  = "eg"
  stage      = "circleci"
  name       = "assets"
}

Important

In Cloud Posse's examples, we avoid pinning modules to specific versions to prevent discrepancies between the documentation and the latest released versions. However, for your own projects, we strongly advise pinning each module to the exact version you're using. This practice ensures the stability of your infrastructure. Additionally, we recommend implementing a systematic approach for updating versions to avoid unexpected changes.

Examples

module "fluentd_user" {
  source = "cloudposse/iam-system-user/aws"
  # Cloud Posse recommends pinning every module to a specific version
  # version     = "x.x.x"
  namespace = "eg"
  stage     = "dev"
  name      = "fluentd"

  policy_arns_map = {
    logs = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/CloudWatchLogsFullAccess"
  }

  inline_policies_map = {
    s3 = data.aws_iam_policy_document.s3_policy.json
  }
}

data "aws_iam_policy_document" "s3_policy" {
  statement {
    actions = [
      "s3:PutObject",
      "s3:GetObjectAcl",
      "s3:GetObject",
      "s3:ListBucket",
      "s3:PutObjectAcl"
    ]

    resources = [
      "arn:aws:s3:::bucket_name/*",
      "arn:aws:s3:::bucket_name/"
    ]
  }
}

Makefile Targets

Available targets:

  help                                Help screen
  help/all                            Display help for all targets
  help/short                          This help short screen
  lint                                Lint terraform code

Requirements

Name	Version
terraform	>= 0.13.0
aws	>= 2.0

Providers

Name	Version
aws	>= 2.0

Modules

Name	Source	Version
store_write	cloudposse/ssm-parameter-store/aws	0.13.0
this	cloudposse/label/null	0.25.0

Resources

Name	Type
aws_iam_access_key.default	resource
aws_iam_user.default	resource
aws_iam_user_policy.inline_policies	resource
aws_iam_user_policy_attachment.policies	resource

Inputs

Name	Description	Type	Default	Required
additional_tag_map	Additional key-value pairs to add to each map in tags_as_list_of_maps. Not added to tags or id. This is for some rare cases where resources want additional configuration of tags and therefore take a list of maps with tag key, value, and additional configuration.	map(string)	{}	no
attributes	ID element. Additional attributes (e.g. workers or cluster) to add to id, in the order they appear in the list. New attributes are appended to the end of the list. The elements of the list are joined by the delimiter and treated as a single ID element.	list(string)	[]	no
context	Single object for setting entire context at once. See description of individual variables for details. Leave string and numeric variables as null to use default value. Individual variable settings (non-null) override settings in context object, except for attributes, tags, and additional_tag_map, which are merged.	any	{ "additional_tag_map": {}, "attributes": [], "delimiter": null, "descriptor_formats": {}, "enabled": true, "environment": null, "id_length_limit": null, "label_key_case": null, "label_order": [], "label_value_case": null, "labels_as_tags": [ "unset" ], "name": null, "namespace": null, "regex_replace_chars": null, "stage": null, "tags": {}, "tenant": null }	no
create_iam_access_key	Whether or not to create IAM access keys	bool	true	no
delimiter	Delimiter to be used between ID elements. Defaults to - (hyphen). Set to "" to use no delimiter at all.	string	null	no
descriptor_formats	Describe additional descriptors to be output in the descriptors output map. Map of maps. Keys are names of descriptors. Values are maps of the form {<br/> format = string<br/> labels = list(string)<br/>} (Type is any so the map values can later be enhanced to provide additional options.) format is a Terraform format string to be passed to the format() function. labels is a list of labels, in order, to pass to format() function. Label values will be normalized before being passed to format() so they will be identical to how they appear in id. Default is {} (descriptors output will be empty).	any	{}	no
enabled	Set to false to prevent the module from creating any resources	bool	null	no
environment	ID element. Usually used for region e.g. 'uw2', 'us-west-2', OR role 'prod', 'staging', 'dev', 'UAT'	string	null	no
force_destroy	Destroy the user even if it has non-Terraform-managed IAM access keys, login profile or MFA devices	bool	false	no
id_length_limit	Limit id to this many characters (minimum 6). Set to 0 for unlimited length. Set to null for keep the existing setting, which defaults to 0. Does not affect id_full.	number	null	no
inline_policies	Inline policies to attach to our created user	list(string)	[]	no
inline_policies_map	Inline policies to attach (descriptive key => policy)	map(string)	{}	no
label_key_case	Controls the letter case of the tags keys (label names) for tags generated by this module. Does not affect keys of tags passed in via the tags input. Possible values: lower, title, upper. Default value: title.	string	null	no
label_order	The order in which the labels (ID elements) appear in the id. Defaults to ["namespace", "environment", "stage", "name", "attributes"]. You can omit any of the 6 labels ("tenant" is the 6th), but at least one must be present.	list(string)	null	no
label_value_case	Controls the letter case of ID elements (labels) as included in id, set as tag values, and output by this module individually. Does not affect values of tags passed in via the tags input. Possible values: lower, title, upper and none (no transformation). Set this to title and set delimiter to "" to yield Pascal Case IDs. Default value: lower.	string	null	no
labels_as_tags	Set of labels (ID elements) to include as tags in the tags output. Default is to include all labels. Tags with empty values will not be included in the tags output. Set to [] to suppress all generated tags. Notes: The value of the name tag, if included, will be the id, not the name. Unlike other null-label inputs, the initial setting of labels_as_tags cannot be changed in later chained modules. Attempts to change it will be silently ignored.	set(string)	[ "default" ]	no
name	ID element. Usually the component or solution name, e.g. 'app' or 'jenkins'. This is the only ID element not also included as a tag. The "name" tag is set to the full id string. There is no tag with the value of the name input.	string	null	no
namespace	ID element. Usually an abbreviation of your organization name, e.g. 'eg' or 'cp', to help ensure generated IDs are globally unique	string	null	no
path	Path in which to create the user	string	"/"	no
permissions_boundary	Permissions Boundary ARN to attach to our created user	string	null	no
policy_arns	Policy ARNs to attach to our created user	list(string)	[]	no
policy_arns_map	Policy ARNs to attach (descriptive key => arn)	map(string)	{}	no
regex_replace_chars	Terraform regular expression (regex) string. Characters matching the regex will be removed from the ID elements. If not set, "/[^a-zA-Z0-9-]/" is used to remove all characters other than hyphens, letters and digits.	string	null	no
ssm_base_path	The base path for SSM parameters where secrets are stored	string	"/system_user/"	no
ssm_enabled	Set true to store secrets in SSM Parameter Store, <br/>false to store secrets in Terraform state as outputs. Since Terraform state would contain the secrets in plaintext, use of SSM Parameter Store is recommended.	bool	true	no
ssm_ses_smtp_password_enabled	Whether or not to create an SES SMTP password	bool	false	no
stage	ID element. Usually used to indicate role, e.g. 'prod', 'staging', 'source', 'build', 'test', 'deploy', 'release'	string	null	no
tags	Additional tags (e.g. {'BusinessUnit': 'XYZ'}). Neither the tag keys nor the tag values will be modified by this module.	map(string)	{}	no
tenant	ID element _(Rarely used, not included by default)_. A customer identifier, indicating who this instance of a resource is for	string	null	no

Outputs

Name	Description
access_key_id	The access key ID
access_key_id_ssm_path	The SSM Path under which the IAM User's access key ID is stored
secret_access_key	When ssm_enabled is false, this is the secret access key for the IAM user. This will be written to the state file in plain-text. When ssm_enabled is true, this output will be empty to keep the value secure.
secret_access_key_ssm_path	The SSM Path under which the IAM User's secret access key is stored
ses_smtp_password_v4	When ssm_enabled is false, this is the secret access key converted into an SES SMTP password by applying AWS's Sigv4 conversion algorithm. It will be written to the Terraform state file in plaintext. When ssm_enabled is true, this output will be empty to keep the value secure.
ses_smtp_password_v4_ssm_path	The SSM Path under which the IAM User's SES SMTP password is stored
ssm_enabled	true when secrets are stored in SSM Parameter store, false when secrets are stored in Terraform state as outputs.
user_arn	The ARN assigned by AWS for this user
user_name	Normalized IAM user name
user_unique_id	The unique ID assigned by AWS

Related Projects

Check out these related projects.

• terraform-aws-iam-s3-user - Terraform module to provision a basic IAM user with permissions to access S3 resources, e.g. to give the user read/write/delete access to the objects in an S3 bucket
• terraform-aws-iam-assumed-roles - Terraform Module for Assumed Roles on AWS with IAM Groups Requiring MFA
• terraform-aws-ssm-iam-role - Terraform module to provision an IAM role with configurable permissions to access SSM Parameter Store
• terraform-aws-iam-chamber-user - Terraform module to provision a basic IAM chamber user with access to SSM parameters and KMS key to decrypt secrets, suitable for CI/CD systems (e.g. TravisCI, CircleCI, CodeFresh) or systems which are external to AWS that cannot leverage AWS IAM Instance Profiles
• terraform-aws-lb-s3-bucket - Terraform module to provision an S3 bucket with built in IAM policy to allow AWS Load Balancers to ship access logs
• terraform-null-label - Terraform Module to implement a consistent naming convention

Tip

Use Terraform Reference Architectures for AWS

Use Cloud Posse's ready-to-go terraform architecture blueprints for AWS to get up and running quickly.

✅ We build it together with your team.
✅ Your team owns everything.
✅ 100% Open Source and backed by fanatical support.

📚 Learn More

Cloud Posse is the leading DevOps Accelerator for funded startups and enterprises.

Your team can operate like a pro today.

Ensure that your team succeeds by using Cloud Posse's proven process and turnkey blueprints. Plus, we stick around until you succeed.

Day-0: Your Foundation for Success

• Reference Architecture. You'll get everything you need from the ground up built using 100% infrastructure as code.
• Deployment Strategy. Adopt a proven deployment strategy with GitHub Actions, enabling automated, repeatable, and reliable software releases.
• Site Reliability Engineering. Gain total visibility into your applications and services with Datadog, ensuring high availability and performance.
• Security Baseline. Establish a secure environment from the start, with built-in governance, accountability, and comprehensive audit logs, safeguarding your operations.
• GitOps. Empower your team to manage infrastructure changes confidently and efficiently through Pull Requests, leveraging the full power of GitHub Actions.

Day-2: Your Operational Mastery

• Training. Equip your team with the knowledge and skills to confidently manage the infrastructure, ensuring long-term success and self-sufficiency.
• Support. Benefit from a seamless communication over Slack with our experts, ensuring you have the support you need, whenever you need it.
• Troubleshooting. Access expert assistance to quickly resolve any operational challenges, minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity.
• Code Reviews. Enhance your team’s code quality with our expert feedback, fostering continuous improvement and collaboration.
• Bug Fixes. Rely on our team to troubleshoot and resolve any issues, ensuring your systems run smoothly.
• Migration Assistance. Accelerate your migration process with our dedicated support, minimizing disruption and speeding up time-to-value.
• Customer Workshops. Engage with our team in weekly workshops, gaining insights and strategies to continuously improve and innovate.

✨ Contributing

This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.

Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:

For 🐛 bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.

In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

1. Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
2. Fork the repo on GitHub
3. Clone the project to your own machine
4. Commit changes to your own branch
5. Push your work back up to your fork
6. Submit a Pull Request so that we can review your changes

NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest changes from "upstream" before making a pull request!

🌎 Slack Community

Join our Open Source Community on Slack. It's FREE for everyone! Our "SweetOps" community is where you get to talk with others who share a similar vision for how to rollout and manage infrastructure. This is the best place to talk shop, ask questions, solicit feedback, and work together as a community to build totally sweet infrastructure.

📰 Newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter and join 3,000+ DevOps engineers, CTOs, and founders who get insider access to the latest DevOps trends, so you can always stay in the know. Dropped straight into your Inbox every week — and usually a 5-minute read.

📆 Office Hours

Join us every Wednesday via Zoom for your weekly dose of insider DevOps trends, AWS news and Terraform insights, all sourced from our SweetOps community, plus a live Q&A that you can’t find anywhere else. It's FREE for everyone!

License

Preamble to the Apache License, Version 2.0

Complete license is available in the LICENSE file.

Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.

Trademarks

All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

---

Copyright © 2017-2024 Cloud Posse, LLC