Amazon Exam DOP-C02 Topic 2 Question 13 Discussion

A comprehensive and detailed explanation is:

Option A is correct because removing the AdministratorAccess policy and assigning the ReadOnlyAccess managed IAM policy to the developer role is a valid way to prevent the developers from making any manual changes to the deployed resources. The AdministratorAccess policy grants full access to all AWS resources and actions, which is not necessary for the developers. The ReadOnlyAccess policy grants read-only access to most AWS resources and actions, which is sufficient for the developers to view the status of their stacks. Instructing the developers to use the CloudFormationDeployment role as a CloudFormation service role when they deploy new stacks is also a valid way to ensure that only CloudFormation can use the new role. A CloudFormation service role is an IAM role that allows CloudFormation to make calls to resources in a stack on behalf of the user1. The user can specify a service role when they create or update a stack, and CloudFormation will use that role's credentials for all operations that are performed on that stack1.

Option B is incorrect because updating the trust of CloudFormationDeployment role to allow the developer IAM role to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and perform actions on the deployed resources, which is not what the company wants. The trust of CloudFormationDeployment role should only allow the cloudformation.amazonaws.com AWS principal to assume the role, as in option D.

Option C is incorrect because configuring the IAM user to be able to get and pass the CloudFormationDeployment role if cloudformation actions for resources is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually pass the CloudFormationDeployment role to other services or resources, which is not what the company wants. The IAM user should only be able to pass the CloudFormationDeployment role as a service role when they create or update a stack with CloudFormation, as in option A.

Option D is correct because updating the trust of CloudFormationDeployment role to allow the cloudformation.amazonaws.com AWS principal to perform the iam:AssumeRole action is a valid solution. This allows CloudFormation to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and access resources in other services on behalf of the user2. The trust policy of an IAM role defines which entities can assume the role2. By specifying cloudformation.amazonaws.com as the principal, you grant permission only to CloudFormation to assume this role.

Option E is incorrect because instructing the developers to assume the CloudFormationDeployment role when they deploy new stacks is not a valid solution. This would allow the developers to manually assume the CloudFormationDeployment role and perform actions on the deployed resources, which is not what the company wants. The developers should only use the CloudFormationDeployment role as a service role when they deploy new stacks with CloudFormation, as in option A.

Option F is correct because adding an IAM policy to CloudFormationDeployment that allows cloudformation:* on all resources and adding a policy that allows the iam:PassRole action for ARN of CloudFormationDeployment if iam:PassedToService equals cloudformation.amazonaws.com are valid solutions. The first policy grants permission for CloudFormationDeployment to perform any action with any resource using cloudformation.amazonaws.com as a service principal3. The second policy grants permission for passing this role only if it is passed by cloudformation.amazonaws.com as a service principal4. This ensures that only CloudFormation can use this role.

References:

1: AWS CloudFormation service roles

2: How to use trust policies with IAM roles

3: AWS::IAM::Policy

4: IAM: Pass an IAM role to a specific AWS service