Goodbye Logouts: Manage Multiple AWS Accounts on One Browser!

#aws #cloud

Introduction

Are you tired of constant toggling between multiple AWS accounts? Is having multiple browser windows, just so you can access different AWS account simultaneously reducing your overall efficiency?

If this is something you still struggle with, I have great news for you!

AWS has now introduced multi-session support for web browsers!

These can be root accounts, IAM users or federated roles - across the same or different AWS accounts (current maximum concurrent session limit is 5).

Continue reading to learn how to enable this feature...

Cost

This is a free feature, and does not incur any cost to the user.

Implementation

In order to be able to do so, we need to enable Multi Session (which can also be disabled anytime we no longer wish to use.

Sign in to the AWS Management Console of the account you wish to enable the feature.
On the top right navigation pane, click your account name to expand the dropdown list.
Click Turn on multi-session support. Do the same at the next screen.
Your browser window should immediately get refreshed. Notice that the browser URL has changed! The new one has your AWS account ID and a unique string combination. Bookmark this URL for future use.
Multi-session support is now enabled for the current account+user.
To enable the same for more users in the same account, click Add sessions in your account dropdown list.
Enter the credentials. This can be an IAM user, Root user or Federated roles of the same or a different account altogether, and a new sub-domain URL is now created for the second user! Remember to bookmark this URL as well!
Switch between both the open tabs. You are logged in as different accounts in each! You can access upto 5 such login URLs simultaneously in a web browser.

Remember, this is the limit for a single web-browser, and is not an account specific limit. If you try accessing more than five, you will be asked to logout from one of the existing sessions.