In Amazon Web Services (AWS), an IAM role is an AWS identity with permissions that you can use to access AWS resources. An IAM user is an AWS identity that represents a person or service that interacts with AWS resources.
Here are some key differences between IAM roles and IAM users:
Permissions: IAM roles are intended to be assumed by AWS services, applications, or users. They do not have permanent credentials (such as a password or access keys) associated with them. Instead, they are intended to be used to grant permissions to other AWS resources. In contrast, IAM users have permanent credentials and can be granted permissions directly.
Use cases: IAM roles are typically used when you want to grant permissions to an AWS service or application to access other resources in your account. For example, you might create an IAM role for an Amazon EC2 instance to allow it to access an Amazon S3 bucket. IAM users are typically used when you want to grant permissions to a person or service that needs to interact with AWS resources.
Management: IAM roles are managed through the AWS Management Console or using the AWS API. IAM users are managed through the AWS Management Console, the AWS API, or the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI).
In summary, IAM roles are primarily intended for use by AWS services and applications, while IAM users are intended for use by people or services that need to interact with AWS resources.
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