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Working with shared environment in AWS Cloud9
A shared environment is an AWS Cloud9 development environment that multiple users were invited to participate in. This topic provides instructions for sharing an environment in AWS Cloud9 and how to participate in a shared environment.
To invite a user to participate in an environment that you own, follow one of these sets of procedures. Choose based on the type of user that you want to invite.
If you are a user in the same AWS account as the environment you should Invite a User in the Same Account as the Environment.
If you are an AWS Cloud9 administrator in the same AWS account as the environment, specifically the AWS account root user, an administrator user or a user with the AWS managed policy
AWSCloud9Administratorattached, then you should invite the AWS Cloud9 administrator yourself, see Invite a User in the Same Account as the Environment, or have the AWS Cloud9 administrator invite themself (or others in the same AWS account), see Have an AWS Cloud9 Administrator in the Same Account as the Environment Invite Themself or Others.
Shared Environment use cases
A shared environment is good for the following use cases:
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Pair programming (also known as peer programming): This is where two users work together on the same code in a single environment. In pair programming, typically one user writes code while the other user observes the code being written. The observer gives immediate input and feedback to the code writer. These positions frequently switch during a project. Without a shared environment, teams of pair programmers typically sit in front of a single machine. Only one user at a time can write code. With a shared environment, both users can sit in front of their own machine. Moreover, they can write code at the same time, even if they are in different physical offices.
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Computer science classes: This is useful when teachers or teaching assistants want to access a student's environment. Doing so can be for review a student's homework or fix issues with their environment in real time. Students can also work together with their classmates on shared homework projects, writing code together in a single environment in real time. They can do this even though they might be in different locations using different computer operating systems and web browser types.
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Any other situation where multiple users need to collaborate on the same code in real time.
About environment member access roles
Before you share an environment or participate in a shared environment in AWS Cloud9, you should understand the access permission levels for a shared environment. We call these permission levels environment member access roles.
A shared environment in AWS Cloud9 offers three environment member access roles: owner, read/write, and read-only.
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An owner has full control over an environment. Each environment has one and only one owner, who is the environment creator. An owner can do the following actions.
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Add, change, and remove members for the environment
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Open, view, and edit files
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Run code
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Change environment settings
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Chat with other members
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Delete existing chat messages
In the AWS Cloud9 IDE, an environment owner is displayed with Read+Write access.
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A read/write member can do the following actions.
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Open, view, and edit files
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Run code
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Change various environment settings from within the AWS Cloud9 IDE
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Chat with other members
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Delete existing chat messages
In the AWS Cloud9 IDE, read/write members are displayed with Read+Write access.
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A read-only member can do the following actions.
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Open and view files
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Chat with other members
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Delete existing chat messages
In the AWS Cloud9 IDE, read-only members are displayed with Read Only access.
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Before a user can become an environment owner or member, that user must meet one of the following criteria.
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The user is an AWS account root user.
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The user is an administrator user. For more information, see Creating Your First IAM Admin User and Group in the IAM User Guide.
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The user is a user who belongs to an IAM group, a user who assumes a role, or a federated user who assumes a role, and that group or role has the AWS managed policy
AWSCloud9AdministratororAWSCloud9User(orAWSCloud9EnvironmentMember, to be a member only) attached. For more information, see AWS Managed (Predefined) Policies.-
To attach one of the preceding managed policies to an IAM group, you can use the AWS Management Console or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) as described in the following procedures.
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You can create a role in IAM with one of the preceding managed policies for a user or a federated user to assume. For more information, see Creating Roles in the IAM User Guide. To have a user or a federated user assume the role, see coverage of assuming roles in Using IAM Roles in the IAM User Guide.
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Attach an AWS managed policy for AWS Cloud9 to a group using the console
The following procedure outlines how to attach an AWS managed policy for AWS Cloud9 to a group using the console.
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Sign in to the AWS Management Console, if you are not already signed in.
For this step, we recommend you sign in using IAM administrator-level credentials in your AWS account. If you can't do this, check with your AWS account administrator.
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Open the IAM console. To do this, in the console navigation bar, choose Services. Then choose IAM.
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Choose Groups.
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Choose the name of the group.
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On the Permissions tab, for Managed Policies, choose Attach Policy.
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In the list of policy names, choose one of the following boxes.
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AWSCloud9User (preferred) or AWSCloud9Administrator to enable each user in the group to be an environment owner
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AWSCloud9EnvironmentMember to enable each user in the group to be a member only
(If you don't see one of these policy names in the list, type the policy name in the Search box to display it.)
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Choose Attach policy.