🔑 AWS Authentication

Introduction

AWS provides multiple authentication and authorization mechanisms for securing applications and resources.

Key Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you'll understand:

• IAM users and roles

• Access keys and credentials

• Temporary security credentials

• Cognito for user management

• API keys and tokens

• Best practices

IAM Roles

# Create role
aws iam create-role \
  --role-name LambdaExecutionRole \
  --assume-role-policy-document file://trust-policy.json

# Attach policy
aws iam attach-role-policy \
  --role-name LambdaExecutionRole \
  --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole

Cognito User Pool

# Create user pool
aws cognito-idp create-user-pool \
  --pool-name MyUserPool \
  --policies PasswordPolicy={MinimumLength=8}

# Create app client
aws cognito-idp create-user-pool-client \
  --user-pool-id us-east-1_XXXXXXXXX \
  --client-name MyApp

Temporary Credentials

# Assume role
aws sts assume-role \
  --role-arn arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT:role/MyRole \
  --role-session-name MySession

# Use credentials in AWS SDK
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=...
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=...

Key Takeaways

• **IAM** controls AWS resource access

• **Cognito** manages user authentication

• **Temporary credentials** limit exposure

• **Access keys** for programmatic access

• **MFA** adds security layer

Next Steps

Learn about scaling and load balancing, or explore cost optimization.