Assume IAM roles through an AWS Bastion account with MFA via the command line.

AWS Bastion accounts store only IAM users providing a central, isolated account to manage their credentials and access. Trusting AWS accounts create IAM roles that the Bastion users can assume, to allow a single user access to multiple accounts resources. Under this setup, assume-role makes it easier to follow the standard security practices of MFA and short lived credentials.

assume-role requires jq and aws CLI tools to be installed.

brew tap coinbase/assume-role
brew install assume-role

You can then upgrade at any time by running:

brew upgrade assume-role

You can install/upgrade assume-role with this command:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coinbase/assume-role/master/install-assume-role -O
cat install-assume-role # inspect the script for security
bash ./install-assume-role # install assume-role

It will ask for your sudo password if necessary.

Make sure that credentials for your AWS bastion account are stored in ~/.aws/credentials.

Out of the box you can call assume-role like:

eval $(assume-role account-id role mfa-token)

If your shell supports bash functions (e.g. zsh) then you can add source $(which assume-role) to your rc file (e.g. ~/.zshrc), then you can call assume-role like:

assume-role [account-id] [role] [mfa-token]

assume-role this method can be used with arguments or interactively like:

You can define aliases to account ids in ~/.aws/accounts which assume-role can use, e.g.

{
  "default": 123456789012,
  "staging": 123456789012,
  "production": 123456789012
}

With this file, to assume the read role in the production account:

assume-role production read
# OR
assume-role 123456789012 read

Here is a simple example of how to set up a Bastion AWS account with an id 0987654321098 and a Production account with the id 123456789012.

In the Production account create a role called read, with the trust relationship:

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::0987654321098:root"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
      "Condition": {
        "Bool": {
          "aws:SecureTransport": "true",
          "aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent": "true"
        },
        "NumericLessThan": {
          "aws:MultiFactorAuthAge": "54000"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

The conditions aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent and aws:MultiFactorAuthAge forces the use of temporary credentials secured with MFA.

In the Bastion account, create a group called assume-read with the policy:

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [ "sts:AssumeRole" ],
      "Resource": [ "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/read" ],
      "Condition": {
        "Bool": {
          "aws:MultiFactorAuthPresent": "true",
          "aws:SecureTransport": "true"
        },
        "NumericLessThan": {
          "aws:MultiFactorAuthAge": "54000"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Attach this group to Bastion users that should be able use read's policies in the Production account.

You can assume the read role in Production by running:

assume-role 123456789012 read

Then entering a MFA token on request.

If you are using zsh you can get a sweet prompt by adding to your .zshrc file:

# AWS ACCOUNT NAME
function aws_account_info {
  [ "$AWS_ACCOUNT_NAME" ] && [ "$AWS_ACCOUNT_ROLE" ] && echo "%F{blue}aws:(%f%F{red}$AWS_ACCOUNT_NAME:$AWS_ACCOUNT_ROLE%f%F{blue})%F$reset_color"
}

# )ofni_tnuocca_swa($ is $(aws_account_info) backwards
PROMPT=`echo $PROMPT | rev | sed 's/ / )ofni_tnuocca_swa($ /'| rev`

For bash you could put the following in your .bash_profile file:

function aws_account_info {
  [ "$AWS_ACCOUNT_NAME" ] && [ "$AWS_ACCOUNT_ROLE" ] && echo -n "aws:($AWS_ACCOUNT_NAME:$AWS_ACCOUNT_ROLE) "
}

PROMPT_COMMAND='aws_account_info'

assume-role is tested with BATS (Bash Automated Testing System). To run the tests first you will need bats, jq and shellcheck installed. On macOS this can be accomplished with brew:

brew install bats
brew install jq
brew install shellcheck

Then run bats test/assume-role.bats;