How to use java to access dynamodb without access credential on an ec2 instance with IAM role

Question

I want to use Java to access Dynamodb on an Ec2 instance. This Ec2 instance has been granted a IAM role, with which I can directly access the Dynamodb by using aws CLI: aws dynamodb list-table. Now I try to access the Dynamodb via Java. The Java code should be able to assume role, but it didn't work.

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    String ROLE_ARN = "arn:aws:iam::....";

    AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient stsClient = new AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient();

    AssumeRoleRequest assumeRequest = new AssumeRoleRequest()
        .withRoleArn(ROLE_ARN)
        .withDurationSeconds(3600)
        .withRoleSessionName("demo");

    AssumeRoleResult assumeResult = stsClient.assumeRole(assumeRequest);

    BasicSessionCredentials temporaryCredentials = new BasicSessionCredentials(
                assumeResult.getCredentials().getAccessKeyId(),
                assumeResult.getCredentials().getSecretAccessKey(),
                assumeResult.getCredentials().getSessionToken());

    AmazonDynamoDBClient client = new AmazonDynamoDBClient(temporaryCredentials)

    DynamoDB dynamoDB = new DynamoDB(client);

    TableCollection<ListTablesResult> tables = dynamoDB.listTables();
    Iterator<Table> iterator_t = tables.iterator();
    System.out.println("Listing table names");
    while (iterator_t.hasNext()) {
        Table table = iterator_t.next();
        System.out.println(table.getTableName());
    }
}

When I ran the code on the ec2 instance, I got

Exception in thread "main" com.amazonaws.services.securitytoken.model.AWSSecurityTokenServiceException: Not authorized to perform sts:AssumeRole (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403; Error Code: AccessDenied; Request ID: 60313562-d462-11e6-a116-5bf8bb6a59ce)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.handleErrorResponse(AmazonHttpClient.java:1586)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.executeOneRequest(AmazonHttpClient.java:1254)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.executeHelper(AmazonHttpClient.java:1035)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.doExecute(AmazonHttpClient.java:747)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.executeWithTimer(AmazonHttpClient.java:721)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.execute(AmazonHttpClient.java:704)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutor.access$500(AmazonHttpClient.java:672)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient$RequestExecutionBuilderImpl.execute(AmazonHttpClient.java:654)
    at com.amazonaws.http.AmazonHttpClient.execute(AmazonHttpClient.java:518)
    at com.amazonaws.services.securitytoken.AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.doInvoke(AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.java:1188)
    at com.amazonaws.services.securitytoken.AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.invoke(AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.java:1164)
    at com.amazonaws.services.securitytoken.AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.assumeRole(AWSSecurityTokenServiceClient.java:419)
    at com.spokeo.dynamo_elas.AccessAwsD.main(AccessAwsD.java:stsClient.assumeRole(assumeRequest))

Anybody knows how to solve this problem? Thanks.

Answer 1

After a long time exploring, finally figured out the following solution.

    AWSCredentialsProvider provider = new InstanceProfileCredentialsProvider();

    AWSCredentials credential = provider.getCredentials();

    AmazonDynamoDBClient client = new AmazonDynamoDBClient(credential);

    client.setRegion(Region.getRegion(Regions.US_WEST_2));

    DynamoDB dynamoDB = new DynamoDB(client);

    TableCollection<ListTablesResult> tables = dynamoDB.listTables();

Also the dependencies in pom.xml needs to be configured correctly to avoid conflicts, say, com.amazonaws aws-java-sdk 1.11.72

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
        <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
        <version>4.5.2</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.fasterxml.jackson.core/jackson-databind -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
        <version>2.8.5</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat/jackson-dataformat-cbor -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-cbor</artifactId>
        <version>2.8.5</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 2

When I've done this I've never had to do anything specifically with the role - indeed, I have no idea what role I'm using. I use something like:

AWSCredentialsProviderChain credentialsProvider;
try {
    credentialsProvider = new DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain();
}
catch (Exception e) {
    throw new RuntimeException("Error loading credentials", e);
}

AmazonDynamoDBClient client = new AmazonDynamoDBClient(credentialsProvider);

The advantage of using the default provider is that if I'm developing locally with a ~/.aws/credentials it is used. If I'm on the EC2 with IAM credentials then it is used.