AWS create role - Has prohibited field

Question

I am trying out a simple example suggested by AWS documentation to create a role using a policy json file http://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles_create_for-service.html And I get the error

A client error (MalformedPolicyDocument) occurred when calling the CreateRole operation: Has prohibited field Resource

Here's the command,

>> aws iam create-role --role-name test-service-role --assume-role-policy-document file:///home/ec2-user/policy.json
A client error (MalformedPolicyDocument) occurred when calling the CreateRole operation: Has prohibited field Resource

The policy is the exact same as the one mentioned in the example

>> cat policy.json 
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "s3:ListBucket",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::example_bucket"
  }
}

My version seems to be up to date

>> aws --version
aws-cli/1.9.9 Python/2.7.10 Linux/4.1.10-17.31.amzn1.x86_64 botocore/1.3.9

Answer 1

The policy document should be something like:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": {"Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"},
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
  }
}

This is called a trust relationship policy document. This is different from a policy document. Whatever you have pasted is for the policy attached to a role which is done using attach role policy

Even the above role document is given in the link you have pasted. This should work. I have worked on roles and policies and I can say with certainty.

Even in the AWS console, for roles you can see that there is a separate tab for trust relationship. Also you have currently attached policies in the permissions tab.