Conditions, Wildcards, and Policy Variables
Fine-tune access with context keys and dynamic values.
Fine-Tuning Access
Beyond action and resource, IAM offers powerful tools to make policies precise and dynamic: conditions, wildcards, and policy variables. Mastering these lets you grant exactly the access needed under exactly the right circumstances, which is the essence of least privilege and a recurring exam theme.
The Condition Element
A Condition block contains one or more tests that must all be true for the statement to apply. Each test pairs an operator with a condition key and a value, for example StringEquals on aws:PrincipalTag. Multiple keys in one block are ANDed together; multiple values for one key are ORed.
All lessons in this course
- Anatomy of an IAM Policy Document
- Identity-Based versus Resource-Based Policies
- The Policy Evaluation Decision Flow
- Conditions, Wildcards, and Policy Variables