Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Gitpod is a flexible tool that works with many cloud providers, including AWS. The following page describes ways that you can integrate Gitpod and AWS.

OIDC Integration with AWS

Gitpod can connect workspaces to AWS using Gitpod support for OpenID Connect, which allows workspaces to retrieve AWS access credentials in the workspace without the use of static credentials, or environment variables. In the following flow, an IAM role is created in an external AWS account, through usage of the gp command in Gitpod. The generated JWT token includes claims about the workspace and it’s owner, and is exchanged with AWS for an STS token. That STS token is related to an IAM role and will inherit any access that is given to that IAM role. Modelling the access controls is the responsibility of the AWS account owner/administrator.

Step 1: Create an “AWS Identity Provider” resource

To connect Gitpod to AWS you need to create an “IAM identity provider” to establish a trust relationship between your AWS account and Gitpod.

AWS Identity Providers allow you to manage user identities outside of AWS, instead of creating IAM users in your AWS account and giving these external identities (e.g. Gitpod workspaces) permissions to use AWS resources in your account.

Configure the URL of the identity provider to: https://services.<gitpod-installation>/idp

For example, for Gitpod Cloud this is: https://services.gitpod.io/idp. For a Dedicated installation running under companyname.gitpod.cloud, the URL is: https://services.companyname.gitpod.cloud/idp.

The client ID / Audience should be set to: sts.amazonaws.com

Read more:

• [AWS docs] Creating IAM identity providers
• [AWS docs] Creating OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity providers

Step 2: Create an AWS role with a trust policy

Now that your AWS account is setup to trust Gitpod, you need to create an AWS IAM role that can be assumed by the Gitpod workspace. Here, you can also restrict who has access to the assumed role based on claims in your Gitpod workspace JWT token.

💡 Important: We strongly recommend you adhere to the principle of least privilege, and ensure that only relevant workspaces and users can assume your AWS role.

json

{
	"iss": "https://services.gitpod.io/idp",
	"aud": ["sts.amazonaws.com"],
	"azp": "sts.amazonaws.com",
	"c_hash": "zSrbWN_X9Wx52-wxjgdX5w",
	"exp": 1682344961,
	"iat": 1682341361,
	"auth_time": 1682341361,
	"sub": "https://github.com/gitpod-io/gitpod",
	"name": "kumquat"
}

To adjust the IAM role trust policy to restrict which workspaces can assume the role. You can define conditions keys using the name of the OIDC provider (created in step 1, e.g. gitpod.io) followed by the claim (:aud, :azp, :amr, sub).

Read more:

• [AWS docs] IAM and AWS STS condition context keys
• [AWS docs] IAM String condition operators

Step 3: Assume the AWS role to retrieve the AWS credentials

💡 Important: The following assumes that your workspace has the AWS CLI installed so that it can call aws sts assume-role-with-web-identity.

You can either call the AWS CLI assume-role command manually, or use the helper command within the gp CLI, gp idp aws login which will automatically update your AWS CLI credentials file. The following code will login to AWS using OIDC and then fetch a secret dynamically from AWS Secrets Manager for use in your application.

The token expiry can be customized using --duration-seconds=<token-expiry-in-seconds>, this configuration option exactly matches the --duration-seconds configuration option offered by AWS CLI. The default is 3600 seconds. Note, to use a longer expiry your AWS Administrator must allow for longer sessions.

yml

tasks:
    - command: |
          gp idp login aws --role-arn <your-iam-role-arn> [--duration-seconds=<expiry-in-seconds>]
          aws secretsmanager get-secret-value --secret-id database_connection_string --region us-east-1 | jq .SecretString

Read more:

• [AWS docs] assume-role-with-web-identity

Troubleshooting

Use gp idp token --audience="sts.amazonaws.com" to print your workspace JWT token. Ensure that any claims against the sub match the trust policy in AWS.

Frequently asked questions

What AWS resources can I access with OIDC in Gitpod?

When you use OIDC in Gitpod, you get an AWS access token called an STS token. This STS token lets you access various AWS resources, like EC2 instances, EKS clusters, S3 Buckets, RDS databases, and more. In simple terms, if you’re trying to do something that you can do with AWS CLI or SDK, it will work in Gitpod, too provided you setup grant the required access through your IAM role.

How fine-grained is the AWS access control in Gitpod?

When you connect to AWS through OIDC in Gitpod, you get an STS token that represents an AWS IAM role. This IAM role has specific policies or rules that define what can and can’t be accessed in AWS. The level of access you have in Gitpod to AWS resources depends on the policies you attach to the assumed IAM role.