Hands-On: Creating an IAM User

In the last lesson, we created the IAM group called “wordpressadmins.”

Now, let’s create an IAM user to use during this course.

Create an IAM user

We’ve already created a user group in the last lesson, so now it’s time to create a user that we can assign to this user group.

1. Go to “Users” on the left sidebar to open the user management page.
2. Click “Add users.”
3. Enter a username. Let’s use “wordpress” for this course.
4. Under “Select AWS credential type,” select both “Access key - Programmatic access” and “Password - AWS Management Console access.”
5. We can choose either an autogenerated or a custom password, but we’ll use “Custom password” here to make the setup process more straightforward. You can enter any password you want to use here.
6. Disable “User must create a new password at next sign-in.” Otherwise, we’ll need to change it again on the next login.

Note: If you’ll be an AWS admin at work, it’s probably best to use “Autogenerated password” and “User must create a new password at next sign-in” if you create accounts for others. This way, they can set their own password on the next login, and no one else has access to their account.

7. Click the “Next: Permissions” button. It should be enabled after you filled out the information above.