Bigtable access control with IAM

This page describes the access control options in Bigtable.

Overview

Bigtable uses Identity and Access Management (IAM) for access control. You set IAM policies on resources to control who has what access to which resources.

Bigtable resources are organized in a hierarchy. A Google Cloud project is the parent of a Bigtable instance, which is the parent of its clusters and tables. A table is the parent of its authorized views while a cluster is the parent of its backups. You can configure access control at each level.

If you have permissions at a level, then you automatically have permissions below that level. For example, if you have access at the project level, then you have access to the instances, clusters, tables, and authorized views in that project. If you are granted access to an a authorized view, then you don't automatically have access to higher-level resources that are parents of the authorized view, such as the table and instance. This behavior is called policy inheritance.

For more information about IAM hierarchy, see IAM policy inheritance.

Here are some examples of using access control at the project level:

• Allow a user to read from, but not write to, any table within the project.
• Allow a user to read from and write to any table within the project, but not manage instances.
• Allow a user to read from and write to any table within the project, and manage instances.

Examples of using access control at the instance level include the following:

• Allow a user to read from any table in only one instance in a project that has multiple instances.
• Allow a user to manage only one instance in a project that has multiple instances.

Examples of using access control at the table level include the following:

• Allow a user to write to a table but not read from the table.
• Allow a user to read from a table but not write to the table.

Examples of using access control at the backup level include the following:

• Prevent a user from deleting a backup.
• Prevent a user from restoring from the backup.

Examples of using access control at the authorized view level include the following:

• Let a user read an authorized view but not modify it.
• Let a user view data from only one of multiple authorized views of a table.

For a detailed description of IAM and its features, see the IAM developer's guide. In particular, see Granting, Changing, and Revoking Access.

In Bigtable, you cannot grant access to the following types of principals:

• allAuthenticatedUsers
• allUsers

For lists of the permissions and roles that Bigtable supports, see the following sections.

Enabling the Bigtable API

To view and assign Bigtable IAM roles, you must enable the Bigtable API for your project. You won't be able to see the Bigtable roles in the Google Cloud console until you enable the API.

Enable the API

Permissions

This section summarizes the permissions that Bigtable supports.

Permissions allow users to perform specific actions on Bigtable resources. For example, the bigtable.instances.list permissions allows users to list all of the Bigtable instances within a project. You don't grant permissions to users directly; instead, you assign each user a predefined role or custom role, which grants one or more permissions.

The following tables list the IAM permissions that are associated with Bigtable:

App profile permission name	Description
bigtable.appProfiles.create	Create a Bigtable app profile.
bigtable.appProfiles.delete	Delete a Bigtable app profile.
bigtable.appProfiles.get	Get information about a Bigtable app profile.
bigtable.appProfiles.list	List an instance's Bigtable app profiles.
bigtable.appProfiles.update	Update the settings for a Bigtable app profile.

Backups permission name	Description
bigtable.backups.create	Create a Bigtable backup.
bigtable.backups.delete	Delete a Bigtable backup.
bigtable.backups.get	Get information about a Bigtable backup.
bigtable.backups.getIamPolicy	Read a backup's access control lists (ACL). Returned as IAM policies.
bigtable.backups.list	List Bigtable backups.
bigtable.backups.restore	Restore from a Bigtable backup.
bigtable.backups.testIamPermissions	Get the caller's permissions on a specified backup.
bigtable.backups.read	Read from a Bigtable backup.
bigtable.backups.setIamPolicy	Update backup ACLs.
bigtable.backups.update	Modify the expiration of a Bigtable backup.

Cluster permission name	Description
bigtable.clusters.create	Create a Bigtable cluster.
bigtable.clusters.delete	Delete a Bigtable cluster.
bigtable.clusters.get	Get information about a Bigtable cluster.
bigtable.clusters.list	List an instance's Bigtable clusters.
bigtable.clusters.update	Update the settings for a Bigtable cluster.

Hot tablets permission name	Description
bigtable.hotTablets.list	List hot tablets for a cluster.

Instance permission name	Description
bigtable.instances.create	Create a Bigtable instance.
bigtable.instances.createTagBinding	Create a tag.
bigtable.instances.delete	Delete a Bigtable instance.
bigtable.instances.deleteTagBinding	Delete a tag.
bigtable.instances.get	Get information about a Bigtable instance.
bigtable.instances.getIamPolicy	Read instance access control lists (ACLs). Returned as IAM policies.
bigtable.instances.list	List a project's Bigtable instances.
bigtable.instances.listEffectiveTagBindings	List all tags in effect for an instance.
bigtable.instances.listTagBindings	List an instance's tags.
bigtable.instances.ping	Send channel priming requests.
bigtable.instances.setIamPolicy	Update ACLs.
bigtable.instances.update	Update the settings for a Bigtable instance.

Key Visualizer permission name	Description
bigtable.keyvisualizer.get	Get Key Visualizer information about a table, including metadata about access patterns and row key distributions.
bigtable.keyvisualizer.list	List available Key Visualizer information for a table.

Location permission name	Description
bigtable.locations.list	List Bigtable locations.

Table permission name	Description
bigtable.tables.checkConsistency	Check if a replicated table is up to date.
bigtable.tables.create	Create a table.
bigtable.tables.delete	Delete a table.
bigtable.tables.generateConsistencyToken	Generate token to check if a replicated table is up to date.
bigtable.tables.get	Get information about a table, including column families and their individual settings.
bigtable.tables.getIamPolicy	Read table ACLs. Returned as IAM policies.
bigtable.tables.list	List tables in an instance.
bigtable.tables.mutateRows	Modify rows within a table, or truncate the table.
bigtable.tables.readRows	Read rows from a table. This includes information about the table, such as column families and their individual settings.
bigtable.tables.sampleRowKeys	Get a sample of the row keys that are used in a table.
bigtable.tables.setIamPolicy	Update table ACLs.
bigtable.tables.undelete	Recover a deleted table.
bigtable.tables.update	Update the settings for a table, including column families and their individual settings.

Location permission name	Description
bigtable.locations.list	List Bigtable locations.

authorized view permission name	Description
bigtable.authorizedViews.create	Create an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.delete	Delete an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.get	Get information about an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.getIamPolicy	View access control for an authorized view. Returned as IAM policies.
bigtable.authorizedViews.list	List authorized views in a table.
bigtable.authorizedViews.mutateRows	Modify rows within an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.readRows	Read rows from an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.sampleRowKeys	Get a sample of the row keys that are used in an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.setIamPolicy	Update access control policies for an authorized view.
bigtable.authorizedViews.update	Update the settings for an authorized view.

Predefined roles

Each predefined role is a bundle of one or more permissions. For example, roles/bigtable.reader provides read-only access to information about Bigtable instances, clusters, tables, and column families, as well as the data contained within your tables. You assign roles to users or groups, which allows them to perform actions on the resources in your project.

The following table lists the predefined roles for Bigtable, including a list of the permissions associated with each role:

Role	Permissions
Bigtable Administrator (roles/bigtable.admin) Administers all Bigtable instances within a project, including the data stored within tables. Can create new instances. Intended for project administrators. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role: Table	bigtable.* bigtable.appProfiles.create bigtable.appProfiles.delete bigtable.appProfiles.get bigtable.appProfiles.list bigtable.appProfiles.update bigtable.authorizedViews.create bigtable.authorizedViews.createTagBinding bigtable.authorizedViews.delete bigtable.authorizedViews.deleteTagBinding bigtable.authorizedViews.get bigtable.authorizedViews.getIamPolicy bigtable.authorizedViews.list bigtable.authorizedViews.listEffectiveTags bigtable.authorizedViews.listTagBindings bigtable.authorizedViews.mutateRows bigtable.authorizedViews.readRows bigtable.authorizedViews.sampleRowKeys bigtable.authorizedViews.setIamPolicy bigtable.authorizedViews.update bigtable.backups.create bigtable.backups.delete bigtable.backups.get bigtable.backups.getIamPolicy bigtable.backups.list bigtable.backups.read bigtable.backups.restore bigtable.backups.setIamPolicy bigtable.backups.update bigtable.clusters.create bigtable.clusters.delete bigtable.clusters.get bigtable.clusters.list bigtable.clusters.update bigtable.hotTablets.list bigtable.instances.create bigtable.instances.createTagBinding bigtable.instances.delete bigtable.instances.deleteTagBinding bigtable.instances.executeQuery bigtable.instances.get bigtable.instances.getIamPolicy bigtable.instances.list bigtable.instances.listEffectiveTags bigtable.instances.listTagBindings bigtable.instances.ping bigtable.instances.setIamPolicy bigtable.instances.update bigtable.keyvisualizer.get bigtable.keyvisualizer.list bigtable.locations.list bigtable.tables.checkConsistency bigtable.tables.create bigtable.tables.delete bigtable.tables.generateConsistencyToken bigtable.tables.get bigtable.tables.getIamPolicy bigtable.tables.list bigtable.tables.mutateRows bigtable.tables.readRows bigtable.tables.sampleRowKeys bigtable.tables.setIamPolicy bigtable.tables.undelete bigtable.tables.update monitoring.metricDescriptors.get monitoring.metricDescriptors.list monitoring.timeSeries.* monitoring.timeSeries.create monitoring.timeSeries.list resourcemanager.projects.get
Bigtable Reader (roles/bigtable.reader) Provides read-only access to the data stored within Bigtable tables. Intended for data scientists, dashboard generators, and other data-analysis scenarios. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role: Table	bigtable.appProfiles.get bigtable.appProfiles.list bigtable.authorizedViews.get bigtable.authorizedViews.list bigtable.authorizedViews.readRows bigtable.authorizedViews.sampleRowKeys bigtable.backups.get bigtable.backups.list bigtable.clusters.get bigtable.clusters.list bigtable.hotTablets.list bigtable.instances.executeQuery bigtable.instances.get bigtable.instances.list bigtable.instances.ping bigtable.keyvisualizer.* bigtable.keyvisualizer.get bigtable.keyvisualizer.list bigtable.locations.list bigtable.tables.checkConsistency bigtable.tables.generateConsistencyToken bigtable.tables.get bigtable.tables.list bigtable.tables.readRows bigtable.tables.sampleRowKeys monitoring.metricDescriptors.get monitoring.metricDescriptors.list monitoring.timeSeries.* monitoring.timeSeries.create monitoring.timeSeries.list resourcemanager.projects.get
Bigtable User (roles/bigtable.user) Provides read-write access to the data stored within Bigtable tables. Intended for application developers or service accounts. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role: Table	bigtable.appProfiles.get bigtable.appProfiles.list bigtable.authorizedViews.get bigtable.authorizedViews.list bigtable.authorizedViews.mutateRows bigtable.authorizedViews.readRows bigtable.authorizedViews.sampleRowKeys bigtable.backups.get bigtable.backups.list bigtable.clusters.get bigtable.clusters.list bigtable.hotTablets.list bigtable.instances.executeQuery bigtable.instances.get bigtable.instances.list bigtable.instances.ping bigtable.keyvisualizer.* bigtable.keyvisualizer.get bigtable.keyvisualizer.list bigtable.locations.list bigtable.tables.checkConsistency bigtable.tables.generateConsistencyToken bigtable.tables.get bigtable.tables.list bigtable.tables.mutateRows bigtable.tables.readRows bigtable.tables.sampleRowKeys monitoring.metricDescriptors.get monitoring.metricDescriptors.list monitoring.timeSeries.* monitoring.timeSeries.create monitoring.timeSeries.list resourcemanager.projects.get
Bigtable Viewer (roles/bigtable.viewer) Provides no data access. Intended as a minimal set of permissions to access the Google Cloud console for Bigtable. Lowest-level resources where you can grant this role: Table	bigtable.appProfiles.get bigtable.appProfiles.list bigtable.authorizedViews.get bigtable.authorizedViews.list bigtable.backups.get bigtable.backups.list bigtable.clusters.get bigtable.clusters.list bigtable.hotTablets.list bigtable.instances.get bigtable.instances.list bigtable.instances.listEffectiveTags bigtable.instances.listTagBindings bigtable.locations.list bigtable.tables.checkConsistency bigtable.tables.generateConsistencyToken bigtable.tables.get bigtable.tables.list monitoring.metricDescriptors.get monitoring.metricDescriptors.list monitoring.timeSeries.list resourcemanager.projects.get

Custom roles

If the predefined roles for Bigtable don't address your business requirements, you can define your own custom roles with permissions that you specify.

If your custom role needs to support access to the Google Cloud console, you must identify the tasks that users will perform, then ensure that the custom role has the required permissions for each task, as shown in the following table. If a custom role does not have all of the required permissions for a task, and a user tries to perform that task, the Google Cloud console won't work correctly.

Google Cloud console task	Required permissions
Basic access to the Google Cloud console	bigtable.appProfiles.get bigtable.appProfiles.list bigtable.clusters.get bigtable.clusters.list bigtable.instances.get bigtable.instances.list bigtable.locations.list bigtable.tables.get bigtable.tables.list resourcemanager.projects.get
Create an instance or cluster	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.clusters.create bigtable.instances.create
Modify an instance or cluster	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.clusters.update bigtable.instances.update
Manage replication configuration	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.appProfiles.create bigtable.appProfiles.delete bigtable.appProfiles.update
Delete an instance or cluster	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.clusters.delete bigtable.instances.delete
Monitor an instance by viewing graphs	Basic access permissions, plus: monitoring.metricDescriptors.get monitoring.metricDescriptors.list monitoring.timeSeries.list
Create and update a table	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.tables.create bigtable.tables.update
Restore a backup	Basic access permissions, plus: bigtable.backups.list bigtable.tables.create bigtable.backups.restore

IAM management

This section explains how to manage IAM roles and related permissions at project, instance, table, and backup level.

Project-level IAM management

At the project level, you can grant, change, and revoke IAM roles using the Google Cloud console, the IAM API, or the Google Cloud CLI. See Granting, Changing, and Revoking Access for detailed instructions.

Once you create a project, you can grant the project level IAM roles to users based on the specific access levels.

Required roles

Before you set instance-level, table-level, backup-level, or authorized view-level IAM roles for a user, ensure that the user has at least one of the following project-level IAM roles:

• Bigtable Viewer (recommended)
• Bigtable Reader
• Bigtable User
• Bigtable Administrator

Note: You don't need to grant these project-level roles to service accounts because service accounts are associated with a Google Cloud project as opposed to a specific user.

Choose a project-level role that has no more permissions than the user actually needs across all instances, tables, backups, or authorized views in the project. For this reason, you should grant the Bigtable Viewer role in almost all cases.

If the user does not have at least one of these project-level roles, the user won't have access to Bigtable through the Google Cloud console. The Google Cloud console requires one of these project-level roles so that it can retrieve information about instances, clusters, tables, or backups on behalf of the user.

Granting instance-level IAM roles

At the instance level, you can grant any of Bigtable's predefined roles to a user or service account. You can also grant any custom roles that you have defined.

Note: After you change a user's instance-level roles, it may take up to two minutes for the changes to take effect.

To grant a predefined or custom role to a user or service account at the instance level:

Console

1. Go to the Bigtable instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the instances page

2. Check the boxes next to the instances whose roles you want to manage. An information panel appears.

3. In the information panel, click Permissions.

4. Under Add principals, start typing the email address of the user or service account you want to add, then click the email address of the user or service account.

5. Click the Select a role drop-down list, then click Bigtable to select a predefined role or Custom to select a custom role.

6. Click the name of each role that you want to assign.

7. Click Add. The user or service account is granted the roles that you specified at the instance level.

gcloud

1. If you don't know the instance ID, use the bigtable instances list command to view a list of your project's instances:

   gcloud bigtable instances list
   

2. Use the bigtable instances set-iam-policy command:

   gcloud bigtable instances set-iam-policy \
   INSTANCE_ID \
   POLICY_FILE
   

   Provide the following:

   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.
   • POLICY_FILE: Path to a local JSON or YAML file containing a valid IAM policy.

Granting table-level IAM roles

At the table level, you can grant any of Bigtable's predefined roles to a user or service account. You can also grant any custom roles that you have defined.

Note: After you change a user's table-level roles, it can take up to two minutes for the changes to take effect.

To grant a predefined or custom role to a user or service account at the table level:

Console

1. Go to the Bigtable instances page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the instances page

2. Click the name of the instance that contains the table whose IAM you are setting.

3. Select Tables in the left navigation pane.

4. Check the boxes next to the tables whose roles you want to manage. An information panel appears.

5. In the information panel, click Permissions.

6. Under Add principals, start typing the email address of the user or service account you want to add, then click the email address of the user or service account.

7. Click the Select a role drop-down list, then click Bigtable to select a predefined role or Custom to select a custom role.

8. Click the name of each role that you want to assign.

9. Click Add. The user or service account is granted the roles that you specified at the table level.

gcloud

1. If you don't know the instance ID, use the bigtable instances list command to view a list of your project's instances:

   gcloud bigtable instances list
   

2. If you don't know the instance's table IDs, use the bigtable instances tables list command to view a list of tables in the instance.

   gcloud bigtable instances tables list --instances=INSTANCE_ID
   

   Provide the following:

   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.

3. Use the bigtable instances tables set-iam-policy command:

   gcloud bigtable instances tables set-iam-policy \TABLE_ID \
       --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
       POLICY_FILE
   

   Provide the following:

   • TABLE_ID: The permanent identifier for the table.
   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.
   • POLICY_FILE: Path to a local JSON or YAML file containing a valid IAM policy.

Granting backup-level IAM roles

At the backup level, you can grant any of Bigtable's predefined roles to a user or service account. You can also grant any custom roles that you have defined.

Note: After you change a user's backup-level roles, it can take up to two minutes for the changes to take effect.

To grant a predefined or custom role to a user or service account at the backup level:

gcloud

1. If you don't know the instance ID, use the bigtable instances list command to view a list of your project's instances:

   gcloud bigtable instances list
   

2. If you don't know the backup IDs in an instance, use the bigtable instances backups list command to view a list of backups in the instance.

   gcloud bigtable backups list --instances=INSTANCE_ID
   

   Provide the following:

   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.

3. Use the gcloud bigtable backups set-iam-policy command:

   gcloud bigtable backups set-iam-policy BACKUP_ID \
       --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
       --cluster=CLUSTER_ID \
       POLICY_FILE
   

   Provide the following:

   • BACKUP_ID: The permanent identifier for the backup.
   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.
   • TABLE_ID: The permanent identifier for the table
   • POLICY_FILE: Path to a local JSON or YAML file containing a valid IAM policy.

Granting authorized view-level IAM roles

At the authorized view level, you can grant any of Bigtable's predefined roles to a user or service account. You can also grant any custom roles that you have defined.

Note: After you change a user's authorized view-level roles, it can take up to two minutes for the changes to take effect.

To grant a predefined or custom role to a user or service account at the authorized view level, run the following:

gcloud

1. If you don't know the instance ID, use the bigtable instances list command to view a list of your project's instances:

   gcloud bigtable instances list
   

2. If you don't know the instance's table IDs, use the bigtable instances tables list command to view a list of tables in the instance.

   gcloud bigtable instances tables list --instances=INSTANCE_ID
   

3. If you don't know the view ID, use the bigtable authorized-views list command to see a list of all authorized views of the table.

   gcloud bigtable instances tables authorized-views list \
       --instance=INSTANCE_ID \
       --table=TABLE_ID
   

4. Use the bigtable authorized-views set-iam-policy command:

   gcloud bigtable authorized-views set-iam-policy TABLE_ID \
       AUTHORIZED_VIEW_ID --instance=INSTANCE_ID POLICY_FILE
   

   Provide the following:

   • INSTANCE_ID: The permanent identifier for the instance.
   • TABLE_ID: The permanent identifier for the table
   • AUTHORIZED_VIEW_ID: The permanent identifier for the view
   • POLICY_FILE: Path to a local JSON or YAML file containing a valid IAM policy.

IAM conditions

IAM Conditions let you define and enforce conditional, attribute-based access control for some Google Cloud resources, including Bigtable resources.

In Bigtable, you can enforce conditional access based on the following attributes:

• Date/time attributes: Use to set temporary (expiring), scheduled, or limited-duration access to Bigtable resources. For example, you can allow a user to access a table until a specified date.
• Resource attributes: Use to configure conditional access based on a resource name, resource type, or resource service attributes. In Bigtable, you can use attributes of instances, clusters, tables, backups, and authorized views to configure conditional access. For example, you can allow a user to manage tables only on tables that begin with a specific prefix, or you can allow a user to access only a specific table.

For more information about IAM Conditions, see the Conditions overview.

What's next

Learn more about IAM.