Add AWS credentials

Before you can add your AWS credentials to Portainer, you will need to configure your IAM account with the necessary access policies and create and retrieve an access key.

Configuring access to AWS

While you can use an existing IAM user to communicate with Portainer, you may want to create a new user for just this purpose. The minimum IAM policies required for Portainer to provision are as follows:

• AmazonEC2FullAccess

• AWSCloudFormationFullAccess

In addition, we require two custom policies, which you should create and assign to your IAM user:

EKSFullAccess

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "eks:*",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Action": [
                "ssm:GetParameter",
                "ssm:GetParameters"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:ssm:*:<account_id>:parameter/aws/*",
                "arn:aws:ssm:*::parameter/aws/*"
            ],
            "Effect": "Allow"
        },
        {
             "Action": [
               "kms:CreateGrant",
               "kms:DescribeKey"
             ],
             "Resource": "*",
             "Effect": "Allow"
        },
        {
             "Action": [
               "logs:PutRetentionPolicy"
             ],
             "Resource": "*",
             "Effect": "Allow"
        }        
    ]
}

IAMLimitedAccess

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:CreateInstanceProfile",
                "iam:DeleteInstanceProfile",
                "iam:GetInstanceProfile",
                "iam:RemoveRoleFromInstanceProfile",
                "iam:GetRole",
                "iam:CreateRole",
                "iam:DeleteRole",
                "iam:AttachRolePolicy",
                "iam:PutRolePolicy",
                "iam:ListInstanceProfiles",
                "iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile",
                "iam:ListInstanceProfilesForRole",
                "iam:PassRole",
                "iam:DetachRolePolicy",
                "iam:DeleteRolePolicy",
                "iam:GetRolePolicy",
                "iam:GetOpenIDConnectProvider",
                "iam:CreateOpenIDConnectProvider",
                "iam:DeleteOpenIDConnectProvider",
                "iam:TagOpenIDConnectProvider",
                "iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies",
                "iam:TagRole",
                "iam:GetPolicy",
                "iam:CreatePolicy",
                "iam:DeletePolicy",
                "iam:ListPolicyVersions"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:instance-profile/eksctl-*",
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:role/eksctl-*",
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:policy/eksctl-*",
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:oidc-provider/*",
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:role/aws-service-role/eks-nodegroup.amazonaws.com/AWSServiceRoleForAmazonEKSNodegroup",
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:role/eksctl-managed-*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:GetRole"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:iam::<account_id>:role/*"
            ]
        },
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole"
            ],
            "Resource": "*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "iam:AWSServiceName": [
                        "eks.amazonaws.com",
                        "eks-nodegroup.amazonaws.com",
                        "eks-fargate.amazonaws.com"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Once you have your IAM user set up, log in to the AWS portal with the IAM user and in the top right menu - the user's name - select Security Credentials. Expand the Access keys section and click Create New Access Key.

Copy the Access key ID and the Secret access key that are generated.

Adding your credentials

To add credentials for an AWS account, from the Cloud settings page click Add credentials, then select the Amazon Web Services (AWS) option. Enter a name for your credentials, then paste your access key ID and and secret access key from AWS into the fields.

When you're ready, click Add credentials. Your credentials will now be available to you when provisioning a Kubernetes cluster on AWS.