👥 AWS 117: Managing the Crowd - Creating Your First IAM Group

🏢 IAM Groups: Scaling Security Without the Stress

Hey Cloud Architects! 👋

Welcome to Day 17 of the #100DaysOfCloud Challenge: Create IAM Group! Yesterday, we created our first IAM user. Today, we are taking it to the next level with KodeKloud Engineer by organizing our identities into Groups.

In a small startup, managing one or two users is easy. But what happens when you have 50 developers? You don't want to manually attach permissions to 50 different people! That's where Groups come in.

Our mission today: Create an IAM group named iamgroup_kirsty.

---

1. Introduction: Why Use IAM Groups? 💡

An IAM User Group is a collection of IAM users. You use groups to specify permissions for multiple users simultaneously.

• Simplified Management: If your "Developers" need access to S3, you attach the S3 policy to the Group. Every user you drop into that group instantly gets that access.
• Inheritance: When a user leaves the team or moves to a different department, you just move them to a different group. Their permissions update automatically.
• Best Practice: AWS recommends assigning permissions to groups rather than individual users. It makes your security audit much cleaner!

Let's build a home for our team members! 👥

---

2. Step-by-Step Guide: Creating iamgroup_kirsty

We will use the AWS Management Console to set up this new organizational unit.

Step 2.1: Navigate to User Groups

1. Log in to the AWS Console.

1. Search for IAM and open the dashboard.

1. In the left sidebar, under "Access management", click on "User groups".

Step 2.2: Create the Group

1. Click the orange "Create group" button in the top right.

Step 2.3: Name and Configure

1. User group name: Enter iamgroup_kirsty.
2. Add users to the group: (Optional) If you already have users like iamuser_javed from yesterday, you could select them here. For this task, we can leave it empty if needed.
3. Attach permissions policies: (Optional) Usually, you would search for a policy like AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess or PowerUserAccess. If the task doesn't specify permissions, you can skip this for now.

Step 2.4: Finalize and Create

1. Scroll to the bottom and click "Create group".

Success! iamgroup_kirsty is now active and ready to manage your users. 🎉

---

3. Key Takeaways 📝

• Global Resource: Like users, IAM groups are global. They work across all AWS regions.
• No Nesting: You cannot put a group inside another group.
• Limits: A single IAM user can be a member of up to 10 groups.
• Logical Organization: Groups should represent job functions (e.g., Admins, Developers, Testers, Billing).

---

4. Common Mistakes to Avoid 🚫

1. Direct Attachments: Avoid the temptation to attach policies directly to users. It leads to "permission creep" where people have old access they no longer need.
2. Vague Naming: Name your groups clearly. iamgroup_kirsty might be for a specific project, but names like Nautilus-Dev-Team are often better for long-term use.
3. Over-Privileging: Even for groups, stick to the Principle of Least Privilege.

---

5. Conclusion + Call to Action! 🌟

You've just simplified your life as a DevOps engineer! By using groups, you spend less time clicking on individual users and more time building great features.

How is your 100 Days of Cloud Challenge going? 🛡️

• 💬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn: How do you organize your IAM groups by department or by project? 👉 Hritik Raj
• ⭐ Support my journey on GitHub: Follow the full code and task history. 👉 GitHub – 100 Days of Cloud