## Connect with cross-account IAM role

URL: https://docs.atlan.com/apps/connectors/etl-tools/aws-glue/how-tos/connect-with-a-cross-account-iam-role

> The recommended way to connect Atlan to AWS Glue - Atlan assumes a role you create, so no long-lived secret ever leaves your account.

The recommended method: Atlan assumes a role you create, so no long-lived secret ever leaves your account. Five phases - including the two-ticket handshake with Atlan support that most failed setups skipped.

## Prerequisites

- Someone who can create IAM roles and edit trust policies in the AWS account holding the Glue catalog.
- If a security/cyber team must approve trust-policy changes (common in regulated industries), loop them in before Phase 2 - they'll ask about the [External ID](#about-external-id).
- Your Atlan **tenant URLs**. Connecting dev and prod tenants? Each has a *different* node instance role - plan one role (or one trust-policy entry) per tenant.

## Five phases at glance

| Phase | What happens | Owner | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ask | Ticket #1: get your tenant's node instance role ARN | Atlan User + Atlan support | Same business day |
| 2. Build | Create the IAM role: permissions policy + trust policy | AWS admin | 30 min (+ security review) |
| 3. Allowlist | Ticket #2: Atlan allowlists your role on its side - **the critical handshake** | Atlan support | 1–2 business days |
| 4. Connect | Enter Role ARN + region in Atlan and test | Atlan User | 15 minutes |
| 5. Verify | Preflight + first crawl + column sanity check | Atlan User | 30 minutes |

## Phase 1 - Get Atlan's node instance role ARN

**Owner:** Atlan User

[Raise a support request](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/submit-request/submit-request/llms.txt) from within Atlan: *"Setting up AWS Glue with role delegation—please share the node instance role ARN for tenant `example-corp.atlan.com`."* List every tenant if you have several environments - the ARN differs per tenant. See [Atlan identity & network details](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/aws-glue/atlan-identity-and-network-details/llms.txt) for the full request template.

> **Tip: Save a round-trip**
>
>
> If you already know the role name and AWS account ID you'll create in Phase 2, include them in this same ticket and ask support to **pre-approve the allowlisting** (Phase 3). This collapses the two-ticket handshake into one.
>

## Phase 2—create role

**Owner:** AWS admin + Security/IAM team

1. Create the read-only IAM policy - same JSON as [Phase 1 of the access-keys guide](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/aws-glue/connect-with-iam-access-keys/llms.txt) (or see [Catalog permissions & Lake Formation](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/aws-glue/catalog-permissions-and-lake-formation/llms.txt)).
2. Create a new IAM role (suggested name: `atlan-glue-read`), attach that policy.
3. Set the role's **trust policy** so Atlan's node instance role may assume it:

```json
{
 "Version": "2012-10-17",
 "Statement": [
 {
 "Effect": "Allow",
 "Principal": { "AWS": "<atlan_nodeinstance_role_arn>" },
 "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
 "Condition": {}
 }
 ]
}
```

### About external ID

An External ID is an *optional* shared passphrase your security team may require inside the trust policy's `Condition` block. The rules that keep it from causing failures:

- If your security process doesn't demand one, **leave it out entirely** - trust policy *and* Atlan connection field both blank.
- If it does: for the standard (direct) flow, agree the value with Atlan support on your ticket *before* adding it to the trust policy. For the agent-based flow, the connection form has an optional **External ID** field - the value there and in the trust policy must match exactly.
- A value present on one side but not the other fails with an access-denied error that looks identical to a missing allowlist.

## Phase 3 - Atlan allowlists your role

**Owner:** Atlan support

Reply on your ticket (or raise ticket #2) with two values: **the name of the role you created** and **the 12-digit AWS account ID where it lives**. Atlan support then permits your tenant's node instance role to assume your role. The lifecycle:

1. **Role created** - your side is done (Phase 2)
2. **Awaiting allowlist** - Test Authentication fails with "Access denied when assuming role" in this state, even though your setup is correct
3. **Allowlisted** - both keys of the door turn; assumption succeeds
4. **Usable** - proceed to Phase 4

> **Warning: Don't test before support confirms**
>
>
> This handshake is the most-missed step in the whole setup. A perfect trust policy still fails until Atlan's side is done. **Wait for explicit confirmation on the ticket, then test.** If the error persists after confirmation, check the role name for typos - support allowlists the exact ARN you sent, and two similarly named roles are easy to mix up.
>

## Phase 4 - connect

**Owner:** Atlan User

1. Open **New workflow → AWS Glue Assets**, Direct extraction.
2. Enter the **AWS Role ARN** of the role from Phase 2 (full ARN, for example, `arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/atlan-glue-read` - illustrative) and the **Region** of the catalog. Leave the access-key fields empty for this method; leave **External ID** blank unless agreed in Phase 2.
3. Click **Test Authentication**.

## Phase 5 - verify

**Owner:** Atlan User

- **Test Authentication** passes
- All three preflight checks pass (authentication, `GetDatabases`, `GetTables`)
- First crawl completes and **columns are populated** - tables arriving with 0 columns means [Lake Formation grants](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/aws-glue/catalog-permissions-and-lake-formation/llms.txt) are missing, even though everything "passed"
- If you connected multiple tenants: repeat Phases 1–4 per tenant with that tenant's own node instance role ARN

## Next steps

[Crawl AWS Glue](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/aws-glue/crawl-aws-glue/llms.txt): Configure and run the crawler to extract metadata from AWS Glue

_Last updated: 20 August 2026._

---

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