AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess

Summary

Provides full access to Amazon EFS via the AWS Management Console. The Amazon EFS User Guide says it grants administrative permissions for full access to Amazon EFS and access to related AWS services.

Permissions imported from the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide; other sections reviewed against the listed AWS sources.

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccessCopy ARN

Default version

v10

Created

2015-05-27

Last edited

2024-11-07

Services

cloudwatch, ec2, elasticfilesystem, iam, kms

Control-plane actions (50)

By access level: 12 List, 2 Permissions management, 10 Read, 4 Tagging, 22 Write.

Data-plane actions (1)

By access level: 1 Read.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: mixed.

Can be attached: Yes, to users, groups and roles.

Why this tier

• Grants at least 80% of the write and permissions-management actions of: elasticfilesystem (19 of 21).
• Grants iam:PassRole, but only for scoped roles or under conditions (for example iam:PassedToService).
• 3 granted write or permissions-management actions have no data-plane classification from AWS, so the data-plane rule cannot assess them.

Guidance

Related policies

Same service

• AdministratorAccess-AWSElasticBeanstalk
• AIDevOpsReleaseManagementVPCPolicy
• AmazonAppStreamServiceAccess
• AmazonBioDiscoveryServiceLinkedRolePolicy
• AmazonDataZoneEnvironmentRolePermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDataZoneProjectDeploymentPermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDataZoneProjectRolePermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDataZoneSageMakerProvisioningRolePolicy

Same domain

• AmazonDMSRedshiftS3Role
• AmazonEC2RoleforAWSCodeDeploy
• AmazonEC2RoleforAWSCodeDeployLimited
• AmazonEFSCSIDriverPolicy
• AmazonElasticFileSystemClientFullAccess
• AmazonElasticFileSystemClientReadOnlyAccess
• AmazonElasticFileSystemClientReadWriteAccess
• AmazonElasticFileSystemReadOnlyAccess

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess?

The Amazon EFS User Guide says you can attach it to your IAM identities, and that it grants administrative permissions with full access to Amazon EFS and related AWS services through the console. Attach it where that scope is intended.

What does AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess grant?

It allows Amazon EFS management actions on all resources, including AWS Backup backup and restore, CloudWatch reads, EC2 network interface actions, kms:DescribeKey and kms:ListAliases, service-linked role creation for Amazon EFS, and iam:PassRole to elasticfilesystem.amazonaws.com.

What are the security risks of AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess?

It allows deleting file systems and mount targets and changing file system policies on all resources, and passing any role to Amazon EFS. The IAM User Guide warns against letting a user pass a role that has more permissions than you want the user to have. AWS managed policies don't grant least privilege permissions, and you must consider the security risk of granting principals more permissions than they need. AWS updates to the policy affect every identity it is attached to.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "ElasticFileSystemFullAccess",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "cloudwatch:DescribeAlarmsForMetric",
        "cloudwatch:GetMetricData",
        "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones",
        "ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaceAttribute",
        "ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces",
        "ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups",
        "ec2:DescribeSubnets",
        "ec2:DescribeVpcAttribute",
        "ec2:DescribeVpcs",
        "ec2:ModifyNetworkInterfaceAttribute",
        "elasticfilesystem:CreateFileSystem",
        "elasticfilesystem:CreateMountTarget",
        "elasticfilesystem:CreateTags",
        "elasticfilesystem:CreateAccessPoint",
        "elasticfilesystem:CreateReplicationConfiguration",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteFileSystem",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteMountTarget",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteTags",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteAccessPoint",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteFileSystemPolicy",
        "elasticfilesystem:DeleteReplicationConfiguration",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeAccountPreferences",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeBackupPolicy",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystemPolicy",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeLifecycleConfiguration",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeMountTargets",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeMountTargetSecurityGroups",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeTags",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeAccessPoints",
        "elasticfilesystem:DescribeReplicationConfigurations",
        "elasticfilesystem:ModifyMountTargetSecurityGroups",
        "elasticfilesystem:PutAccountPreferences",
        "elasticfilesystem:PutBackupPolicy",
        "elasticfilesystem:PutLifecycleConfiguration",
        "elasticfilesystem:PutFileSystemPolicy",
        "elasticfilesystem:UpdateFileSystem",
        "elasticfilesystem:UpdateFileSystemProtection",
        "elasticfilesystem:TagResource",
        "elasticfilesystem:UntagResource",
        "elasticfilesystem:ListTagsForResource",
        "elasticfilesystem:Backup",
        "elasticfilesystem:Restore",
        "elasticfilesystem:ReplicationRead",
        "elasticfilesystem:ReplicationWrite",
        "kms:DescribeKey",
        "kms:ListAliases"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Sid": "CreateServiceLinkedRoleForEFS",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole",
      "Resource": "*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
          "iam:AWSServiceName": [
            "elasticfilesystem.amazonaws.com"
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "Sid": "IAMPassRoleAccessForEFS",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "iam:PassRole",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::*:role/*",
      "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
          "iam:PassedToService": "elasticfilesystem.amazonaws.com"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v10, edited by AWS on 2024-11-07. Version history is recorded from 2026-11-11. Earlier versions are in the IAM console under Policy versions.

Attach snippets

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ROLE_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "amazonelasticfilesystemfullaccess" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess"),
);

Sources

• AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, practicalScope, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for Amazon EFS (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports summary, practicalScope, useCases, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• Grant a user permissions to pass a role to an AWS service (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-13; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports bestPractices, faqs)

• Official AWS reference for AmazonElasticFileSystemFullAccess
• AWS service guide
• Report a data issue