AWS: Boto3: AssumeRole example which includes role usage

Question

I'm trying to use the AssumeRole in such a way that i'm traversing multiple accounts and retrieving assets for those accounts. I've made it to this point:

import boto3
stsclient = boto3.client('sts')

assumedRoleObject = sts_client.assume_role(
RoleArn="arn:aws:iam::account-of-role-to-assume:role/name-of-role",
RoleSessionName="AssumeRoleSession1")

Great, i have the assumedRoleObject. But now i want to use that to list things like ELBs or something that isn't a built-in low level resource.

How does one go about doing that? If i may ask - please code out a full example, so that everyone can benefit.

Answer 1

Here's a code snippet from the official AWS documentation where an s3 resource is created for listing all s3 buckets. boto3 resources or clients for other services can be built in a similar fashion.

# create an STS client object that represents a live connection to the 
# STS service
sts_client = boto3.client('sts')

# Call the assume_role method of the STSConnection object and pass the role
# ARN and a role session name.
assumed_role_object=sts_client.assume_role(
    RoleArn="arn:aws:iam::account-of-role-to-assume:role/name-of-role",
    RoleSessionName="AssumeRoleSession1"
)

# From the response that contains the assumed role, get the temporary 
# credentials that can be used to make subsequent API calls
credentials=assumed_role_object['Credentials']

# Use the temporary credentials that AssumeRole returns to make a 
# connection to Amazon S3  
s3_resource=boto3.resource(
    's3',
    aws_access_key_id=credentials['AccessKeyId'],
    aws_secret_access_key=credentials['SecretAccessKey'],
    aws_session_token=credentials['SessionToken'],
)

# Use the Amazon S3 resource object that is now configured with the 
# credentials to access your S3 buckets. 
for bucket in s3_resource.buckets.all():
    print(bucket.name)

Answer 2

You can assume role using STS token, like:

class Boto3STSService(object):
    def __init__(self, arn):
        sess = Session(aws_access_key_id=ARN_ACCESS_KEY,
                       aws_secret_access_key=ARN_SECRET_KEY)
        sts_connection = sess.client('sts')
        assume_role_object = sts_connection.assume_role(
            RoleArn=arn, RoleSessionName=ARN_ROLE_SESSION_NAME,
            DurationSeconds=3600)
        self.credentials = assume_role_object['Credentials']

This will give you temporary access key and secret keys, with session token. With these temporary credentials, you can access any service. For Eg, if you want to access ELB, you can use the below code:

self.tmp_credentials = Boto3STSService(arn).credentials

def get_boto3_session(self):
    tmp_access_key = self.tmp_credentials['AccessKeyId']
    tmp_secret_key = self.tmp_credentials['SecretAccessKey']
    security_token = self.tmp_credentials['SessionToken']

    boto3_session = Session(
        aws_access_key_id=tmp_access_key,
        aws_secret_access_key=tmp_secret_key, aws_session_token=security_token
    )
    return boto3_session

def get_elb_boto3_connection(self, region):
    sess = self.get_boto3_session()
    elb_conn = sess.client(service_name='elb', region_name=region)
    return elb_conn

Answer 3

with reference to the solution by @jarrad which is not working as of Feb 2021, and as a solution that does not use STS explicitly please see the following

import boto3
import botocore.session
from botocore.credentials import AssumeRoleCredentialFetcher, DeferredRefreshableCredentials


def get_boto3_session(assume_role_arn=None):
    session = boto3.Session(aws_access_key_id="abc", aws_secret_access_key="def")
    if not assume_role_arn:
        return session

    fetcher = AssumeRoleCredentialFetcher(
        client_creator=_get_client_creator(session),
        source_credentials=session.get_credentials(),
        role_arn=assume_role_arn,
    )
    botocore_session = botocore.session.Session()
    botocore_session._credentials = DeferredRefreshableCredentials(
        method='assume-role',
        refresh_using=fetcher.fetch_credentials
    )

    return boto3.Session(botocore_session=botocore_session)


def _get_client_creator(session):
    def client_creator(service_name, **kwargs):
        return session.client(service_name, **kwargs)

    return client_creator

the function can be called as follows

ec2_client = get_boto3_session(role_arn='my_role_arn').client('ec2', region_name='us-east-1')

Answer 4

If you want a functional implementation, this is what I settled on:

def filter_none_values(kwargs: dict) -> dict:
    """Returns a new dictionary excluding items where value was None"""
    return {k: v for k, v in kwargs.items() if v is not None}


def assume_session(
    role_session_name: str,
    role_arn: str,
    duration_seconds: Optional[int] = None,
    region_name: Optional[str] = None,
) -> boto3.Session:
    """
    Returns a session with the given name and role.
    If not specified, duration will be set by AWS, probably at 1 hour.
    If not specified, region will be left unset.
    Region can be overridden by each client or resource spawned from this session.
    """
    assume_role_kwargs = filter_none_values(
        {
            "RoleSessionName": role_session_name,
            "RoleArn": role_arn,
            "DurationSeconds": duration_seconds,
        }
    )
    credentials = boto3.client("sts").assume_role(**assume_role_kwargs)["Credentials"]
    create_session_kwargs = filter_none_values(
        {
            "aws_access_key_id": credentials["AccessKeyId"],
            "aws_secret_access_key": credentials["SecretAccessKey"],
            "aws_session_token": credentials["SessionToken"],
            "region_name": region_name,
        }
    )
    return boto3.Session(**create_session_kwargs)


def main() -> None:
    session = assume_session(
        "MyCustomSessionName",
        "arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXXXXXXX:role/TheRoleIWantToAssume",
        region_name="us-east-1",
    )
    client = session.client(service_name="ec2")
    print(client.describe_key_pairs())

Answer 5

import json
import boto3


roleARN = 'arn:aws:iam::account-of-role-to-assume:role/name-of-role'
client = boto3.client('sts')
response = client.assume_role(RoleArn=roleARN, 
                              RoleSessionName='RoleSessionName', 
                              DurationSeconds=900)

dynamodb_client = boto3.client('dynamodb', region_name='us-east-1',
                    aws_access_key_id=response['Credentials']['AccessKeyId'],
                    aws_secret_access_key=response['Credentials']['SecretAccessKey'],
                    aws_session_token = response['Credentials']['SessionToken'])

response = dynamodb_client.get_item(
Key={
    'key1': {
        'S': '1',
    },
    'key2': {
        'S': '2',
    },
},
TableName='TestTable')
print(response)

Answer 6

Assuming that 1) the ~/.aws/config or ~/.aws/credentials file is populated with each of the roles that you wish to assume and that 2) the default role has AssumeRole defined in its IAM policy for each of those roles, then you can simply (in psuedo-code) do the following and not have to fuss with STS:

import boto3

# get all of the roles from the AWS config/credentials file using a config file parser
profiles = get_profiles()

for profile in profiles:

    # this is only used to fetch the available regions
    initial_session = boto3.Session(profile_name=profile)

    # get the regions
    regions = boto3.Session.get_available_regions('ec2')

    # cycle through the regions, setting up session, resource and client objects
    for region in regions:
        boto3_session = boto3.Session(profile_name=profile, region_name=region)
        boto3_resource = boto3_session.resource(service_name='s3', region_name=region)
        boto3_client = boto3_sessoin.client(service_name='s3', region_name=region)

        [ do something interesting with your session/resource/client here ]

• Credential Setup (boto3 - Shared Credentials File)
• Assume Role Setup (AWS)

Answer 7

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import boto3

sts_client = boto3.client('sts')
assumed_role = sts_client.assume_role(RoleArn =  "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/example_role",
                                      RoleSessionName = "AssumeRoleSession1",
                                      DurationSeconds = 1800)
session = boto3.Session(
    aws_access_key_id     = assumed_role['Credentials']['AccessKeyId'],
    aws_secret_access_key = assumed_role['Credentials']['SecretAccessKey'],
    aws_session_token     = assumed_role['Credentials']['SessionToken'],
    region_name           = 'us-west-1'
)

# now we make use of the role to retrieve a parameter from SSM
client = session.client('ssm')
response = client.get_parameter(
    Name = '/this/is/a/path/parameter',
    WithDecryption = True
)
print(response)

Answer 8

After a few days of searching, this is the simplest solution I have found. explained here but does not have a usage example.

import boto3


for profile in boto3.Session().available_profiles:

    boto3.DEFAULT_SESSION = boto3.session.Session(profile_name=profile)

    s3 = boto3.resource('s3')

    for bucket in s3.buckets.all():
        print(bucket)

This will switch the default role you will be using. To not make the profile the default, just do not assign it to boto3.DEFAULT_SESSION. but instead, do the following.

testing_profile = boto3.session.Session(profile_name='mainTesting')
s3 = testing_profile.resource('s3')

for bucket in s3.buckets.all():
    print(bucket)

Important to note that the .aws credentials need to be set in a specific way.

[default]
aws_access_key_id = default_access_id
aws_secret_access_key = default_access_key

[main]
aws_access_key_id = main_profile_access_id
aws_secret_access_key = main_profile_access_key

[mainTesting]
source_profile = main
role_arn = Testing role arn
mfa_serial = mfa_arn_for_main_role

[mainProduction]
source_profile = main
role_arn = Production role arn
mfa_serial = mfa_arn_for_main_role

I don't know why but the mfa_serial key has to be on the roles for this to work instead of the source account which would make more sense.

Answer 9

Here's the code snippet I used

sts_client = boto3.client('sts')
assumed_role_object = sts_client.assume_role(
    RoleArn=<arn of the role to assume>,
    RoleSessionName="<role session name>"
)
print(assumed_role_object)
credentials = assumed_role_object['Credentials']
session = Session(
    aws_access_key_id=credentials['AccessKeyId'],
    aws_secret_access_key=credentials['SecretAccessKey'],
    aws_session_token=credentials['SessionToken']
)
self.s3 = session.client('s3')