Rohan Balgotra
Getting Started with AWS Basics: IAM and Cloud Fundamentals☁

Getting Started with AWS Basics: IAM and Cloud Fundamentals☁

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Rohan Balgotra
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6 min read

Table of contents

Introduction

In this blog, we delve deep into AWS's critical security service, IAM (Identity and Access Management), ensuring a thorough understanding of how to manage user identities and permissions within your AWS environment.

What is AWS ??

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, it needs no formal introduction, given its immense popularity. The leading cloud provider in the marketplace is Amazon Web Services. It provides over 200+ AWS services to the developers so they can access them from anywhere at the time of need.

AWS enables businesses and individuals to access and utilize computing resources on-demand, without the need to invest in and maintain physical servers and infrastructure. This provides flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness for organizations of all sizes.

To set up AWS, follow the step-by-step guide provided in this blog: AWS EC2 Basics & Account Setup

There are many of the services in the AWS some are given below:

Compute:

  • Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

  • AWS Lambda

  • Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service)

  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Storage:

  • Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)

  • Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store)

  • Amazon Glacier

  • Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Networking:

  • Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

  • AWS Direct Connect

  • Amazon Route 53

  • AWS CloudFront

Security:

  • AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management)

  • AWS Cognito

  • AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall)

  • AWS Key Management Service (KMS)

  • AWS Secret Manager

DevOps:

  • AWS CodePipeline

  • AWS CodeBuild

  • AWS CodeDeploy

  • AWS CodeCommit

Monitoring:

  • Amazon CloudWatch

  • AWS CloudTrail

Infrastructure as Code (IAC):

  • AWS CloudFormation

  • AWS System Manager

Benefit of AWS

Here are the shortened benefits of using Amazon Web Services (AWS):

  1. Scalability

  2. Cost-Effectiveness

  3. Flexibility

  4. Global Reach

  5. Security and Compliance

  6. Reliability and Availability

  7. Innovation

  8. Elasticity

  9. Managed Services

  10. Community Support

What is IAM ??

Creating your first IAM admin user and User group in your AWS account - DEV Community

IAM stands for Identity and Access Management. It is a fundamental service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows you to control access to your AWS resources securely.

With IAM, you can create and manage users, groups, and roles to grant or deny permissions to access specific AWS resources. This ensures that only authorized individuals or systems can interact with your AWS environment.

Get to know IAM more deeply go through this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORB4eY8EydA

Tasks:)

Task1:

Create an IAM user with the username of your own wish and grant EC2 Access. Launch your Linux instance through the IAM user that you created now and install Jenkins and docker on your machine via single Shell Script.

  1. Create IAM User:

    • Log in to the AWS Management Console (root user)

      Creating your first IAM admin user and User group in your AWS account - DEV Community

    • navigate to IAM, click "Users", then "Add user or Create user."

    • Provide a username, select "Programmatic access",Then click "Next" to proceed. Attach "AmazonEC2FullAccess" policy, review, and create.

    • Save the username

    • generated access keys, and note the Account ID for login credentials.

  2. Launch EC2 Instance:

  3. Create Shell Script:

    • Create a script to install Jenkins and Docker.

        #!/bin/bash

  #installing java
  sudo apt update
  java -version
  sudo apt install default-jre
  javac -version

  #installing jenkins
  curl -fsSL https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable/jenkins.io-2023.key | sudo tee \
              /usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc > /dev/null
  echo deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc] \
              https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ | sudo tee \
                  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list > /dev/null
  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install jenkins
  sudo systemctl start jenkins.service
  sudo systemctl status jenkins

  #installing docker
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install docker.io -y
  sudo systemctl start docker
  sudo systemctl status docker

  4. Execute Script:

    • After creating the docker_jenkins_install.sh script, you can run it on your EC2 instance to install Jenkins and Docker.

      1. Make the script executable:

          chmod +x docker_jenkins_install.sh

      2. Run the script with superuser privileges:

          sudo ./docker_jenkins_install.sh

      3. confirmation

         java -version
  docker --version
  jenkins --version

Task2:

In this task, you need to prepare a DevOps team of avengers. Create 3 IAM users of avengers and assign them in devops groups with IAM policy.

  1. Log in to the AWS Management Console with the IAM user credentials you just created.

  2. For step-by-step guidance on creating an instance, check out this blog: [Link to the Blog].

User

Task2: In this task, you need to prepare a DevOps team of avengers. Create 3 IAM users of avengers and assign them in devops groups with IAM policy.

ChatGPT

Certainly! Here's a step-by-step guide to accomplish Task 2:

Task 2: Prepare DevOps Team of Avengers

  1. Create IAM Users:

    • Log in to your AWS Management Console.

    • Go to IAM and click on "Users".

    • Click "Add user" and create three users: IronMan, Thor, and Hulk.

  2. Create DevOps Group:

    • In IAM, click on "Groups" and then "Create group".

    • Name the group "DevOpsAvengers" and click "Next Step".

  3. Attach Policies to DevOps Group:

    • In the list of policies, attach the policies relevant to DevOps tasks (e.g., AmazonEC2FullAccess, AmazonS3FullAccess, AWSCodeCommitFullAccess, etc.).

  4. Add Users to DevOps Group:

    • Still in the "DevOpsAvengers" group, click on the "Add users to group" button and select IronMan, Thor, and Hulk.

  5. Create IAM Policy (Optional):

    • If there are specific permissions not covered by existing policies, you can create a custom policy and attach it to the DevOpsAvengers group.

  6. Verify Access:

    • Log in as each of the Avengers (IronMan, Thor, Hulk) with their respective IAM user credentials and confirm they have the necessary permissions for DevOps tasks.

Conclusion

This blog post provides a comprehensive overview of AWS IAM, including its features, benefits, and how to use it to manage user identities and permissions within your AWS environment. The post also includes two tasks: (1) create an IAM user with EC2 access and launch a Linux instance, and (2) create a DevOps team of Avengers by creating three IAM users and assigning them to a DevOps group with IAM policy.

Thank you for diving into this blog with me! I trust you found the information both helpful and enlightening. To stay updated on the latest in DevOps 🚀, make sure to follow me. Remember, staying informed means staying ahead in the dynamic world of DevOps!

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn for more updates and discussions on DevOps and Kubernetes! 🚀

Happy Learning! Keep pushing those boundaries! 😊

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