SystemAdministrator

Summary

A job function policy that grants full access permissions necessary for resources required for application and development operations.

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

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/SystemAdministratorCopy ARN

Default version

v12

Created

2016-11-10

Last edited

2026-02-12

Services

acm, autoscaling, cloudtrail, cloudwatch, codecommit, codedeploy, codepipeline, config, ds, ec2, elasticloadbalancing, events, iam, kinesis, kms, lambda, logs, rds, rolesanywhere, route53, route53domains, s3, ses, sns, sqs, trustedadvisor

Control-plane actions (2167)

By access level: 542 List, 60 Permissions management, 496 Read, 41 Tagging, 1028 Write.

The full action list is in actions.json.

Data-plane actions (41)

By access level: 4 List, 3 Permissions management, 12 Read, 4 Tagging, 18 Write.

The full action list is in actions.json.

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: autoscaling (43 of 43), cloudwatch (89 of 89), codedeploy (19 of 19), codepipeline (27 of 27), config (42 of 42), ds (60 of 60), elasticloadbalancing (51 of 51), events (45 of 45), logs (70 of 70), and 7 more.
• Grants data-plane write actions on a data store on all resources without conditions.
• Grants iam:PassRole, but only for scoped roles or under conditions (for example iam:PassedToService).
• 18 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
• AmazonCognitoIdpEmailServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonDataZoneEnvironmentRolePermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDataZoneProjectDeploymentPermissionsBoundary
• AmazonDataZoneProjectRolePermissionsBoundary

Same domain

• AmazonODBAutonomousDatabaseAdmin
• AmazonODBAutonomousVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBExadataInfrastructureAdmin
• AmazonODBExadataVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBExascaleStorageVaultAdmin
• AmazonODBExascaleVmClusterAdmin
• AmazonODBNetworkAdmin
• AWSManagementConsoleAdministratorAccess

Frequently asked questions

When should I attach SystemAdministrator?

Attach it to a user who sets up and maintains resources for development operations. It is the System administrator job function, which AWS designed to align with a common job function in the IT industry.

What does SystemAdministrator grant?

It grants permissions to create and maintain resources across services including AWS CloudTrail, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS Config, AWS Directory Service, Amazon EC2, IAM, AWS KMS, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS, Route 53, Amazon S3, Amazon SES, Amazon SQS, AWS Trusted Advisor and Amazon VPC. It allows s3:*, sns:*, sqs:* and logs:* in full.

What are the security risks of SystemAdministrator?

Most statements apply to all resources and include create, modify and delete actions, such as ec2:TerminateInstances and cloudtrail:StopLogging. It allows iam:PassRole, limited to roles named rds-monitoring-role, ec2-sysadmin-*, ecr-sysadmin-* and lambda-sysadmin-*. 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

{
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Action": [
        "acm:Describe*",
        "acm:Get*",
        "acm:List*",
        "acm:Request*",
        "acm:Resend*",
        "autoscaling:*",
        "cloudtrail:DescribeTrails",
        "cloudtrail:GetTrailStatus",
        "cloudtrail:ListPublicKeys",
        "cloudtrail:ListTags",
        "cloudtrail:LookupEvents",
        "cloudtrail:StartLogging",
        "cloudtrail:StopLogging",
        "cloudwatch:*",
        "codecommit:BatchGetRepositories",
        "codecommit:CreateBranch",
        "codecommit:CreateRepository",
        "codecommit:Get*",
        "codecommit:GitPull",
        "codecommit:GitPush",
        "codecommit:List*",
        "codecommit:Put*",
        "codecommit:Test*",
        "codecommit:Update*",
        "codedeploy:*",
        "codepipeline:*",
        "config:*",
        "ds:*",
        "ec2:Allocate*",
        "ec2:AssignPrivateIpAddresses*",
        "ec2:Associate*",
        "ec2:Allocate*",
        "ec2:AttachInternetGateway",
        "ec2:AttachNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:AttachVpnGateway",
        "ec2:Bundle*",
        "ec2:Cancel*",
        "ec2:Copy*",
        "ec2:CreateCustomerGateway",
        "ec2:CreateDhcpOptions",
        "ec2:CreateFlowLogs",
        "ec2:CreateImage",
        "ec2:CreateInstanceExportTask",
        "ec2:CreateInternetGateway",
        "ec2:CreateKeyPair",
        "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate",
        "ec2:CreateLaunchTemplateVersion",
        "ec2:CreateNatGateway",
        "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:CreatePlacementGroup",
        "ec2:CreateReservedInstancesListing",
        "ec2:CreateRoute",
        "ec2:CreateRouteTable",
        "ec2:CreateSecurityGroup",
        "ec2:CreateSnapshot",
        "ec2:CreateSpotDatafeedSubscription",
        "ec2:CreateSubnet",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:CreateVolume",
        "ec2:CreateVpc",
        "ec2:CreateVpcEndpoint",
        "ec2:CreateVpnConnection",
        "ec2:CreateVpnConnectionRoute",
        "ec2:CreateVpnGateway",
        "ec2:DeleteFlowLogs",
        "ec2:DeleteKeyPair",
        "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate",
        "ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplateVersions",
        "ec2:DeleteNatGateway",
        "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:DeletePlacementGroup",
        "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
        "ec2:DeleteSpotDatafeedSubscription",
        "ec2:DeleteSubnet",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:DeleteVpc",
        "ec2:DeleteVpcEndpoints",
        "ec2:DeleteVpnConnection",
        "ec2:DeleteVpnConnectionRoute",
        "ec2:DeleteVpnGateway",
        "ec2:DeregisterImage",
        "ec2:Describe*",
        "ec2:DetachInternetGateway",
        "ec2:DetachNetworkInterface",
        "ec2:DetachVpnGateway",
        "ec2:DisableVgwRoutePropagation",
        "ec2:DisableVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport",
        "ec2:DisassociateAddress",
        "ec2:DisassociateRouteTable",
        "ec2:EnableVgwRoutePropagation",
        "ec2:EnableVolumeIO",
        "ec2:EnableVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport",
        "ec2:GetConsoleOutput",
        "ec2:GetHostReservationPurchasePreview",
        "ec2:GetLaunchTemplateData",
        "ec2:GetPasswordData",
        "ec2:GetSecurityGroupsForVpc",
        "ec2:Import*",
        "ec2:Modify*",
        "ec2:MonitorInstances",
        "ec2:MoveAddressToVpc",
        "ec2:Purchase*",
        "ec2:RegisterImage",
        "ec2:Release*",
        "ec2:Replace*",
        "ec2:ReportInstanceStatus",
        "ec2:Request*",
        "ec2:Reset*",
        "ec2:RestoreAddressToClassic",
        "ec2:RunScheduledInstances",
        "ec2:UnassignPrivateIpAddresses",
        "ec2:UnmonitorInstances",
        "ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsEgress",
        "ec2:UpdateSecurityGroupRuleDescriptionsIngress",
        "elasticloadbalancing:*",
        "events:*",
        "iam:GetAccount*",
        "iam:GetContextKeys*",
        "iam:GetCredentialReport",
        "iam:ListAccountAliases",
        "iam:ListGroups",
        "iam:ListOpenIDConnectProviders",
        "iam:ListPolicies",
        "iam:ListPoliciesGrantingServiceAccess",
        "iam:ListRoles",
        "iam:ListSAMLProviders",
        "iam:ListServerCertificates",
        "iam:Simulate*",
        "iam:UpdateServerCertificate",
        "iam:UpdateSigningCertificate",
        "kinesis:ListStreams",
        "kinesis:PutRecord",
        "kms:CreateAlias",
        "kms:CreateKey",
        "kms:DeleteAlias",
        "kms:Describe*",
        "kms:GenerateRandom",
        "kms:Get*",
        "kms:List*",
        "kms:Encrypt",
        "kms:ReEncrypt*",
        "lambda:Create*",
        "lambda:Delete*",
        "lambda:Get*",
        "lambda:InvokeFunction",
        "lambda:List*",
        "lambda:PublishVersion",
        "lambda:Update*",
        "logs:*",
        "rds:Describe*",
        "rds:ListTagsForResource",
        "rolesanywhere:GetCrl",
        "rolesanywhere:GetProfile",
        "rolesanywhere:GetSubject",
        "rolesanywhere:GetTrustAnchor",
        "rolesanywhere:ListCrls",
        "rolesanywhere:ListProfiles",
        "rolesanywhere:ListSubjects",
        "rolesanywhere:ListTagsForResource",
        "rolesanywhere:ListTrustAnchors",
        "rolesanywhere:PutNotificationSettings",
        "rolesanywhere:ResetNotificationSettings",
        "route53:*",
        "route53domains:*",
        "ses:*",
        "sns:*",
        "sqs:*",
        "trustedadvisor:*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": "*"
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "ec2:AcceptVpcPeeringConnection",
        "ec2:AttachClassicLinkVpc",
        "ec2:AttachVolume",
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress",
        "ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress",
        "ec2:CreateVpcPeeringConnection",
        "ec2:DeleteCustomerGateway",
        "ec2:DeleteDhcpOptions",
        "ec2:DeleteInternetGateway",
        "ec2:DeleteNetworkAcl*",
        "ec2:DeleteRoute",
        "ec2:DeleteRouteTable",
        "ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup",
        "ec2:DeleteVolume",
        "ec2:DeleteVpcPeeringConnection",
        "ec2:DetachClassicLinkVpc",
        "ec2:DetachVolume",
        "ec2:DisableVpcClassicLink",
        "ec2:EnableVpcClassicLink",
        "ec2:GetConsoleScreenshot",
        "ec2:RebootInstances",
        "ec2:RejectVpcPeeringConnection",
        "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress",
        "ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupIngress",
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:StartInstances",
        "ec2:StopInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Action": "s3:*",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "iam:GetAccessKeyLastUsed",
        "iam:GetGroup*",
        "iam:GetInstanceProfile",
        "iam:GetLoginProfile",
        "iam:GetOpenIDConnectProvider",
        "iam:GetPolicy*",
        "iam:GetRole*",
        "iam:GetSAMLProvider",
        "iam:GetSSHPublicKey",
        "iam:GetServerCertificate",
        "iam:GetServiceLastAccessed*",
        "iam:GetUser*",
        "iam:ListAccessKeys",
        "iam:ListAttached*",
        "iam:ListEntitiesForPolicy",
        "iam:ListGroupPolicies",
        "iam:ListGroupsForUser",
        "iam:ListInstanceProfiles*",
        "iam:ListMFADevices",
        "iam:ListPolicyVersions",
        "iam:ListRolePolicies",
        "iam:ListSSHPublicKeys",
        "iam:ListSigningCertificates",
        "iam:ListUserPolicies",
        "iam:Upload*"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Action": [
        "iam:GetRole",
        "iam:ListRoles",
        "iam:PassRole"
      ],
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/rds-monitoring-role",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/ec2-sysadmin-*",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/ecr-sysadmin-*",
        "arn:aws:iam::*:role/lambda-sysadmin-*"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "Version": "2012-10-17"
}

Version history

Current version v12, edited by AWS on 2026-02-12. 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/job-function/SystemAdministrator
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/SystemAdministrator
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/SystemAdministrator

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

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "job_function_systemadministrator" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/job-function/SystemAdministrator"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("job-function/SystemAdministrator"),
);

Sources

• SystemAdministrator (AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports summary, practicalScope, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• AWS managed policies for job functions (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports practicalScope, useCases, prerequisites, bestPractices, securityConsiderations, assignmentGuidance, faqs)
• Managed policies and inline policies (IAM User Guide) (retrieved 2026-11-12; supports securityConsiderations, faqs)

• Official AWS reference for SystemAdministrator
• Report a data issue