Utkarsh Rastogi for AWS Community Builders

Posted on Jun 9

📘 AWS IAM Explained Desi-Style — With Hall Passes, Principals & Guest Lecturers! (Part 1)

#aws #iam #leastprivilege #cloudsecurity

🎓 Welcome to the IAM School Series!

Whether you're just starting your AWS journey or already deploying production workloads, one thing’s certain:

IAM (Identity and Access Management) is your Principal, Security Guard, and Rulebook all rolled into one.

But IAM can feel complex and abstract — especially for beginners. That’s why we’re launching this fun, visual blog series to break down IAM concepts using something we can all relate to:

🏫 School Life! 🎒

🧠 Why This Series?

In this series, we’ll decode IAM through relatable school analogies, helpful visual diagrams, and real AWS examples —

making even advanced topics simple, memorable, and desi-style fun 🇮🇳✨

Whether you're a student of the cloud or an AWS pro brushing up on the basics

📚 Welcome to the IAM School Series!

Let's start learning IAM the fun way — one hall pass at a time!

🏫 IAM = School Security + Permissions Management

Imagine AWS is a giant digital school:

🧑‍🎓 IAM Users = Students/Teachers
🎫 Policies = Hall Passes
👨‍🏫 Roles = Guest Lecturers
🏢 AWS Environment = School Building
🧪 Services like S3, EC2 = Classrooms
🔐 IAM = Principal’s Office managing security & access

🎯 Goal of IAM?

Ensure only the right people or applications have just the right access to the right AWS resources — and nothing more.

🧱 IAM Building Blocks — As Seen in School

IAM Concept	School Analogy	Purpose
IAM User	Student/Teacher	Person or app with credentials to access AWS
IAM Group	Math Department	Group of users sharing the same permissions
IAM Role	Guest Lecturer	Temporary access assumed by users/services
Policy	Hall Pass / School Rules	Defines allowed actions and resources
Trust Policy	Visitor Sign-In Sheet	Defines who is allowed to assume a role
Authentication	Student ID Card	Verifies identity
Authorization	Hall Pass Check	Verifies what you can do

📌 IAM School Map: Visual Breakdown

Visual Explanation:

🏫 AWS = School Building with classrooms (services)
👩‍🎓 IAM Users = Students accessing services
👨‍🔬 IAM Roles = Guest lecturers with temp access
🎫 Policies = Hall passes
🔁 Arrows = How permissions flow

💡 IAM in Action: Explained Through a School Scenario

🎓 School Example: Submitting Homework to a Box

Student John (IAM User)
Homework Box (S3 Bucket)
Hall Pass (IAM Policy)
Rule: Can submit only, not read/delete others’ work

John's hall pass says:

"Allowed to submit homework in Room 3A only."

Not allowed to read, edit, or delete.

✅ Result: John can drop off homework, but nothing else.

🔒 This is Least Privilege in action.

🧑‍💻 Real AWS Scenario: Uploading Logs to S3

Developer John = IAM User

Needs access to upload logs to S3 — but nothing else.

✅ IAM Policy Attached to the User:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "s3:PutObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::my-app-logs/*"
    }
  ]
}

🔐 Result:

✅ Can upload logs
🚫 Cannot list/read/delete files

🧠 Takeaway: This is a textbook example of least privilege — only what's needed, nothing more.

🧠 Trust vs Permissions — Simplified with a School Analogy

In AWS IAM:

🔐 Trust = Who can assume the role (entry permission)
✅ Permissions = What they can do (action permission)

🏫 School Analogy: Guest Speaker in a Classroom

Imagine a guest speaker (Lambda) wants to give a lecture in Room 7B (DynamoDB).

Two approvals needed:

🏛️ Principal (Trust Policy): Allows entry into the school
👩‍🏫 Teacher (Permissions Policy): Allows teaching in Room 7B

✅ Access is only granted when both agree

📌 Diagram: Trust vs Permissions in School

🔄 Real AWS Example: Lambda Writing to DynamoDB

1. 🏛️ Trust Policy — Who can assume the role

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": {
      "Service": "lambda.amazonaws.com"
    },
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
  }]
}

2. 📋 Permissions Policy — What the Role Can Do

This policy grants the IAM role permission to write items to a specific DynamoDB table:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "dynamodb:PutItem",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:dynamodb:<Region>:<AccountID>:table/MyAppTable"
  }]
}

✅ This ensures the role can only perform PutItem (write operation) on the MyAppTable — and nothing else.

🚀 IAM Simplified — Wrapping Up Part 1 of the Series

This post kicked off the IAM School Series — a fun and visual way to learn AWS IAM using relatable school analogies 🎓.

✅ Key Takeaways:

IAM is like your school's principal, security guard, and rulebook — managing who can go where and do what.
Users, Roles, Policies = Students, Guest Lecturers, Hall Passes
Trust vs Permissions = Entry vs Actions — both must match.
Least privilege is key: give only the access that's needed — nothing more.

🔚 Final Thought

IAM isn’t boring — it’s the school rulebook of the cloud!

So next time someone says IAM is complex, just smile and say:

“IAM ek school ke principal jaisa hai — har entry aur har permission uski marzi se hoti hai!” 😄

🔜 What’s Next?

This was Part 1 of the IAM School Series.

Stay tuned for:

More IAM concepts explained desi-style 🇮🇳
Visual breakdowns and real-world AWS use cases
Cloud wisdom — made fun, simple, and memorable

And always remember: "Hall pass ke bina entry allowed nahi hai!" 🎫

📌 Follow along and let’s keep learning —

One IAM role at a time!

🖼️ A Note on Visuals

All diagrams in this series are AI-generated using ChatGPT to keep things visual — but the stories, analogies, and examples are purely mine ❤️