Help needed with configuring OIDC for Amazon Q business web experience

Greeting

Hi Soufiane!

Thank you for reaching out with your question about configuring OIDC for the Amazon Q Business Web Experience. It sounds like you’re encountering an issue with the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity action in your SSO setup using Auth0. Let’s dive into the details and work through a solution together! 😊

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Clarifying the Issue

Soufiane, you’ve shared that after setting up your SSO flow using Auth0 as the identity provider (IdP), you’re running into the error: “Permission needed: Assume role failed. Contact your admin for support.” From the trust policy you’ve provided, it looks like you’ve correctly attempted to give permissions to qapps:* and qbusiness:*. However, this error often points to a misconfiguration in the trust relationship, role permissions, or the IdP registration with AWS. Don’t worry—we’ll go step by step to identify and resolve the issue!

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Why This Matters

This setup is crucial for enabling secure, seamless authentication for users in your Amazon Q Business Web Experience. Without properly configured roles and trust policies, the application cannot authenticate or authorize access, potentially leading to disruptions for your users. Fixing this ensures not only a secure system but also a smooth user experience.

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Key Terms

• OIDC (OpenID Connect): An identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0 for authenticating users via an IdP.
• AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity: An AWS STS action enabling users authenticated via a web identity to assume an IAM role.
• Trust Policy: A JSON policy defining which entities (e.g., users, services) are allowed to assume an IAM role.
• Auth0: A cloud-based identity provider used for authentication and SSO.

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The Solution (Our Recipe)

Steps at a Glance:

1. Verify the trust relationship policy for the IAM role.
2. Check the permissions assigned to the IAM role.
3. Confirm the IdP (Auth0) configuration in AWS.
4. Debug the setup using AWS CloudTrail and STS tools.

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Step-by-Step Guide:

1. Verify the trust relationship policy for the IAM role.
   Ensure the trust policy is correctly configured for your OIDC provider:

   {
       "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Principal": {
                   "Federated": "arn:aws:iam::767398046214:oidc-provider/mytenant.auth0app.com"
               },
               "Action": "sts:AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity"
           }
       ]
   }

   • Replace mytenant.auth0app.com with your exact Auth0 domain.
   • Double-check the OIDC provider ARN matches what you registered in IAM.

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2. Check the permissions assigned to the IAM role.
   Validate the role’s permissions policy to ensure it grants the required actions:

   {
       "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": "qapps:*",
               "Resource": "*"
           },
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": "qbusiness:*",
               "Resource": "*"
           }
       ]
   }

   This grants access to all actions under qapps and qbusiness. Adjust Resource scope if necessary.

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3. Confirm the IdP (Auth0) configuration in AWS.
   • In the AWS Management Console, navigate to IAM > Identity Providers.
   • Ensure your OIDC provider (e.g., mytenant.auth0app.com) is correctly registered with AWS.
   • Confirm the client ID (or audience) matches the value provided by Auth0.
   • Validate the role is properly linked to this IdP in your configuration.

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4. Debug the setup using AWS CloudTrail and STS.
   • Use AWS CloudTrail to trace the assume-role request and identify policy issues.
   • Test your setup using the AWS CLI:

     aws sts assume-role-with-web-identity \
       --role-arn "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/YourRoleName" \
       --role-session-name "SessionName" \
       --web-identity-token file://web_identity_token.jwt

     • Replace web_identity_token.jwt with an actual token from Auth0.
     • Look for specific errors in the output to pinpoint misconfigurations.

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Closing Thoughts

Here are some helpful resources to guide you further:

• AWS: Creating OpenID Connect (OIDC) Identity Providers
• AWS: AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity API Reference
• Auth0: Integrating with AWS

By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the "Assume role failed" error. If you’re still stuck after trying these, let us know, and we can dig deeper!

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Farewell

Good luck, Soufiane! I’m confident you’ll have this resolved soon. Feel free to follow up if you have additional questions or need further assistance. We’re here to help! 😊🚀

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Cheers,

Aaron💡