This article helps us to decode an encoded AWS error message. Bobcares offers solutions to your AWS queries as a part of our AWS Support Services.

How to decode an encoded AWS error message?

When some process involving the IAM permissions returns an error, the error message will be encoded. This is because the contents of the authorization status may be considered privileged information that the user who requested the operation may not be allowed to see.

However, we can convert it to readable form using AWS CLI. E.g., consider the below error:

We can use the below code in the AWS CLI to decode the message:

$> aws sts decode-authorization-message --encoded-message <encoded message from error>

The result will be like this:

To make it easier to see the error, separate the message piece and use a text editor to replace the embedded quotations \” with “. The message is encoded as JSON inside of “”, by default, the embedded quotes (“) are escaped as \”. So the error message after editing will be like this:

Now, in order to make the JSON into an understandable form, we can use any tool like Visual Studio Code:

Once we know the error, we can modify the IAM policy related to the IAM role or the user to add the missing required permissions to fix the error.

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Conclusion

Operations involving the IAM permissions return encoded errors. This is to protect the confidentiality of the information. In order to fix the error, we’ve to decode it first. This article shows us the method to decode the error through AWS CLI.