AccessDenied for ListObjects for S3 bucket when permissions are s3:*

If you wanted to copy all s3 bucket objects using the command "aws s3 cp s3://bucket-name/data/all-data/ . --recursive" as you mentioned, here is a safe and minimal policy to do that:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
      {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
              "s3:ListBucket"
          ],
          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:s3:::bucket-name"
          ],
          "Condition": {
              "StringLike": {
                  "s3:prefix": "data/all-data/*"
              }
          }
      },
      {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
              "s3:GetObject"
          ],
          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:s3:::bucket-name/data/all-data/*"
          ]
      }
  ]
}

The first statement in this policy allows for listing objects inside a specific bucket's sub directory. The resource needs to be the arn of the S3 bucket, and to limit listing to only a sub-directory in that bucket you can edit the "s3:prefix" value.

The second statement in this policy allows for getting objects inside of the bucket at a specific sub-directory. This means that anything inside the "s3://bucket-name/data/all-data/" path you will be able to copy. Be aware that this doesn't allow you to copy from parent paths such as "s3://bucket-name/data/".

This solution is specific to limiting use for AWS CLI commands; if you need to limit S3 access through the AWS console or API, then more policies will be needed. I suggest taking a look here: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/writing-iam-policies-grant-access-to-user-specific-folders-in-an-amazon-s3-bucket/.

A similar issue to this can be found here which led me to the solution I am giving. https://github.com/aws/aws-cli/issues/2408

Hope this helps!

You have given permission to perform commands on objects inside the S3 bucket, but you have not given permission to perform any actions on the bucket itself.

Slightly modifying your policy would look like this:

{
  "Version": "version_id",
  "Statement": [
    {
        "Sid": "some_id",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
            "s3:*"
        ],
        "Resource": [
            "arn:aws:s3:::bucketname",
            "arn:aws:s3:::bucketname/*"
        ]
    }
  ] 
}

However, that probably gives more permission than is needed. Following the AWS IAM best practice of Granting Least Privilege would look something like this:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
      {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
              "s3:ListBucket"
          ],
          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:s3:::bucketname"
          ]
      },
      {
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Action": [
              "s3:GetObject"
          ],
          "Resource": [
              "arn:aws:s3:::bucketname/*"
          ]
      }
  ]
}