Question

An EC2 instance has been configured with a script in User Data that runs when the instance is booted. The script makes a call to S3 to copy setup and configuration calls. Upon launching the instance you realize that the script is failing as it doesn't have permission to access the S3 bucket containing the resources it needs. What solution will fix the problem while maintaining the best security practices?

Answer 1

To resolve the EC2 instance access issue, create and attach an IAM role with the necessary S3 permissions to the instance. This method aligns with AWS best security practices.

Step-by-step explanation:

To fix the problem of an EC2 instance not having permission to access an S3 bucket, the best security practice is to assign an IAM role to the EC2 instance. The IAM role should have policies that grant the necessary permissions to access the S3 bucket. IAM roles are preferred over storing credentials within EC2 instances as they are more secure and automatically provide temporary credentials to the EC2 instance. Here is a step-by-step explanation to resolve the issue:

• Create an IAM role with a policy that provides access to the specific S3 bucket.
• Attach this IAM role to the EC2 instance that requires access to the bucket.
• Ensure that the EC2 instance is configured to use the IAM role when making calls to AWS services.

This approach ensures that the EC2 instance can securely access the S3 resources without hard-coding credentials, which aligns with AWS best security practices.