AWS

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Overview

Ctrlplane provides built-in integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) through managed IAM roles. This allows workspaces to automatically access and manage AWS resources without users having to deploy their own job agents.

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How It Works

When enabled, Ctrlplane will:

1. Create IAM roles for each workspace
2. Manage the lifecycle of these IAM roles
3. Handle authentication and authorization to scan AWS resources

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Configuration

Ctrlplane uses standard AWS authentication methods. The application will automatically detect and use credentials in the following order:

1. Environment variables (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY)
2. AWS credentials file (~/.aws/credentials)
3. IAM role when running in AWS (e.g. EKS, EC2)
4. Web Identity Federation (for cross-cloud authentication)

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Running in AWS

When running in Amazon Web Services (EKS, EC2, etc.), the application will automatically use the instance IAM role. No additional configuration is needed.

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Running Outside AWS

When running outside of AWS, you’ll need to configure administrative AWS credentials that allow Ctrlplane to manage workspace IAM roles in a landing AWS account. These credentials require specific permissions to create and manage IAM roles.

You have several options for providing these credentials to the application:

1. Environment variables:

global:
  extraEnvs:
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: your-access-key
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: your-secret-key
    AWS_REGION: your-region

2. AWS credentials file:

Create or update ~/.aws/credentials:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = your-access-key
aws_secret_access_key = your-secret-key
region = your-region

3. Alternative authentication methods:
   • EKS node role (when running in EKS)
   • AWS IAM role with workload identity federation
   • Cross-cloud authentication (supports AWS authentication via GCP/Azure workload identity federation)

Here’s the required IAM policy for the administrative role:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "iam:CreateRole",
        "iam:PutRolePolicy",
        "iam:DeleteRole",
        "iam:DeleteRolePolicy",
        "sts:AssumeRole"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

For more information about IAM policies, see the AWS documentation.

If you have the administrative credentials configured and are ready to configure the AWS integration to scan resources in your accounts, see the AWS integration guide.