Skip to content

AWS Organizations

Description

Organizations is a web service that enables you to consolidate your multiple Amazon Web Services accounts into an organization and centrally manage your accounts and their resources.

This guide provides descriptions of the Organizations API. For more information about using this service, see the Organizations User Guide.

API version

This version of the Organizations API Reference documents the Organizations API version 2016-11-28.

As an alternative to using the API directly, you can use one of the Amazon Web Services SDKs, which consist of libraries and sample code for various programming languages and platforms (Java, Ruby, .NET, iOS, Android, and more). The SDKs provide a convenient way to create programmatic access to Organizations. For example, the SDKs take care of cryptographically signing requests, managing errors, and retrying requests automatically. For more information about the Amazon Web Services SDKs, including how to download and install them, see Tools for Amazon Web Services.

We recommend that you use the Amazon Web Services SDKs to make programmatic API calls to Organizations. However, you also can use the Organizations Query API to make direct calls to the Organizations web service. To learn more about the Organizations Query API, see Calling the API by making HTTP Query requests in the Organizations User Guide. Organizations supports GET and POST requests for all actions. That is, the API doesn't require you to use GET for some actions and POST for others. However, GET requests are subject to the limitation size of a URL. Therefore, for operations that require larger sizes, use a POST request.

Signing requests

When you send HTTP requests to Amazon Web Services, sign the requests so that Amazon Web Services can identify who sent them. You sign requests with your Amazon Web Services access key, which consists of an access key ID and a secret access key. We strongly recommend that you don't create an access key for your root account. Anyone who has the access key for your root account has unrestricted access to all the resources in your account. Instead, create an access key for an IAM user that has administrative permissions. As another option, use Amazon Web Services Security Token Service (Amazon Web Services STS) to generate temporary security credentials, and use those credentials to sign requests.

To sign requests, we recommend that you use Signature Version 4. If you have an existing application that uses Signature Version 2, you don't have to update it to use Signature Version 4. However, some operations now require Signature Version 4. The documentation for operations that require version 4 indicate this requirement.

When you use the Command Line Interface (CLI) or one of the Amazon Web Services SDKs to make requests to Amazon Web Services, these tools automatically sign the requests for you with the access key that you specify when you configure the tools.

In this release, each organization can have only one root.

Support and feedback for Organizations

We welcome your feedback. You can post your feedback and questions in the Organizations support forum. For more information about the Amazon Web Services Support forums, see Forums Help.

Endpoint to call When using the CLI or the Amazon Web Services SDK

For the current release of Organizations, specify the us-east-1 region for all Amazon Web Services API and CLI calls made from the commercial Amazon Web Services Regions outside of China. If calling from one of the Amazon Web Services Regions in China, then specify cn-northwest-1. You can do this in the CLI by using these parameters and commands:

Use the following parameter with each command to specify both the endpoint and its region:

--endpoint-url https://organizations.us-east-1.amazonaws.com (from commercial Amazon Web Services Regions outside of China)

or

--endpoint-url https://organizations.cn-northwest-1.amazonaws.com.cn (from Amazon Web Services Regions in China) Use the default endpoint, but configure your default region with this command:

aws configure set default.region us-east-1 (from commercial Amazon Web Services Regions outside of China)

or

aws configure set default.region cn-northwest-1 (from Amazon Web Services Regions in China) Use the following parameter with each command to specify the endpoint:

--region us-east-1 (from commercial Amazon Web Services Regions outside of China)

or

--region cn-northwest-1 (from Amazon Web Services Regions in China)

How examples are presented

The JSON returned by the Organizations service as response to your requests arrives as a single long string without line breaks or formatting whitespace. The examples in this guide include both line breaks and whitespace to improve readability. When example input parameters also would result in long strings that would extend beyond the screen, we insert line breaks to enhance readability. Always submit the input as a single JSON text string.

Recording API Requests

Organizations supports CloudTrail, a service that records Amazon Web Services API calls for your Amazon Web Services account and delivers log files to an Amazon S3 bucket. By using information collected by CloudTrail, you can determine which requests the Organizations service received, who made the request and when, and so on. For more about Organizations and its support for CloudTrail, see Logging Organizations API calls with CloudTrail in the Organizations User Guide. To learn more about CloudTrail, including how to turn it on and find your log files, see the CloudTrail User Guide.

Usage

organizations(
  config = list(),
  credentials = list(),
  endpoint = NULL,
  region = NULL
)

Arguments

  • config

    Optional configuration of credentials, endpoint, and/or region.

    • credentials:
      • creds:
        • access_key_id: AWS access key ID
        • secret_access_key: AWS secret access key
        • session_token: AWS temporary session token
      • profile: The name of a profile to use. If not given, then the default profile is used.
      • anonymous: Set anonymous credentials.
    • endpoint: The complete URL to use for the constructed client.
    • region: The AWS Region used in instantiating the client.
    • close_connection: Immediately close all HTTP connections.
    • timeout: The time in seconds till a timeout exception is thrown when attempting to make a connection. The default is 60 seconds.
    • s3_force_path_style: Set this to true to force the request to use path-style addressing, i.e. http://s3.amazonaws.com/BUCKET/KEY.
    • sts_regional_endpoint: Set sts regional endpoint resolver to regional or legacy https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdkref/latest/guide/feature-sts-regionalized-endpoints.html
    • use_dual_stack: Set this to true to use the dualstack (IPv4 and IPv6) endpoint for a service, where available, falling back to the regular endpoint when it isn't. Defaults to the AWS_USE_DUALSTACK_ENDPOINT environment variable when unset.
  • credentials

    Optional credentials shorthand for the config parameter

    • creds:
      • access_key_id: AWS access key ID
      • secret_access_key: AWS secret access key
      • session_token: AWS temporary session token
    • profile: The name of a profile to use. If not given, then the default profile is used.
    • anonymous: Set anonymous credentials.
  • endpoint

    Optional shorthand for complete URL to use for the constructed client.

  • region

    Optional shorthand for AWS Region used in instantiating the client.

Value

A client for the service. You can call the service's operations using syntax like svc$operation(...), where svc is the name you've assigned to the client. The available operations are listed in the Operations section.

Service syntax

svc <- organizations(
  config = list(
    credentials = list(
      creds = list(
        access_key_id = "string",
        secret_access_key = "string",
        session_token = "string"
      ),
      profile = "string",
      anonymous = "logical"
    ),
    endpoint = "string",
    region = "string",
    close_connection = "logical",
    timeout = "numeric",
    s3_force_path_style = "logical",
    sts_regional_endpoint = "string",
    use_dual_stack = "logical"
  ),
  credentials = list(
    creds = list(
      access_key_id = "string",
      secret_access_key = "string",
      session_token = "string"
    ),
    profile = "string",
    anonymous = "logical"
  ),
  endpoint = "string",
  region = "string"
)

Operations

accept_handshake Accepts a handshake by sending an ACCEPTED response to the sender
attach_policy Attaches a policy to a root, an organizational unit (OU), or an individual account
cancel_handshake Cancels a Handshake
close_account Closes an Amazon Web Services member account within an organization
create_account Creates an Amazon Web Services account that is automatically a member of the organization whose credentials made the request
create_gov_cloud_account This action is available if all of the following are true:
create_organization Creates an Amazon Web Services organization
create_organizational_unit Creates an organizational unit (OU) within a root or parent OU
create_policy Creates a policy of a specified type that you can attach to a root, an organizational unit (OU), or an individual Amazon Web Services account
decline_handshake Declines a Handshake
delete_organization Deletes the organization
delete_organizational_unit Deletes an organizational unit (OU) from a root or another OU
delete_policy Deletes the specified policy from your organization
delete_resource_policy Deletes the resource policy from your organization
deregister_delegated_administrator Removes the specified member Amazon Web Services account as a delegated administrator for the specified Amazon Web Services service
describe_account Retrieves Organizations-related information about the specified account
describe_create_account_status Retrieves the current status of an asynchronous request to create an account
describe_effective_policy Returns the contents of the effective policy for specified policy type and account
describe_handshake Returns details for a handshake
describe_organization Retrieves information about the organization that the user's account belongs to
describe_organizational_unit Retrieves information about an organizational unit (OU)
describe_policy Retrieves information about a policy
describe_resource_policy Retrieves information about a resource policy
describe_responsibility_transfer Returns details for a transfer
detach_policy Detaches a policy from a target root, organizational unit (OU), or account
disable_aws_service_access Disables the integration of an Amazon Web Services service (the service that is specified by ServicePrincipal) with Organizations
disable_policy_type Disables an organizational policy type in a root
enable_all_features Enables all features in an organization
enable_aws_service_access Provides an Amazon Web Services service (the service that is specified by ServicePrincipal) with permissions to view the structure of an organization, create a service-linked role in all the accounts in the organization, and allow the service to perform operations on behalf of the organization and its accounts
enable_policy_type Enables a policy type in a root
invite_account_to_organization Sends an invitation to another account to join your organization as a member account
invite_organization_to_transfer_responsibility Sends an invitation to another organization's management account to designate your account with the specified responsibilities for their organization
leave_organization Removes a member account from its parent organization
list_accounts Lists all the accounts in the organization
list_accounts_for_parent Lists the accounts in an organization that are contained by the specified target root or organizational unit (OU)
list_accounts_with_invalid_effective_policy Lists all the accounts in an organization that have invalid effective policies
list_aws_service_access_for_organization Returns a list of the Amazon Web Services services that you enabled to integrate with your organization
list_children Lists all of the organizational units (OUs) or accounts that are contained in the specified parent OU or root
list_create_account_status Lists the account creation requests that match the specified status that is currently being tracked for the organization
list_delegated_administrators Lists the Amazon Web Services accounts that are designated as delegated administrators in this organization
list_delegated_services_for_account List the Amazon Web Services services for which the specified account is a delegated administrator
list_effective_policy_validation_errors Lists all the validation errors on an effective policy for a specified account and policy type
list_handshakes_for_account Lists the recent handshakes that you have received
list_handshakes_for_organization Lists the recent handshakes that you have sent
list_inbound_responsibility_transfers Lists transfers that allow you to manage the specified responsibilities for another organization
list_organizational_units_for_parent Lists the organizational units (OUs) in a parent organizational unit or root
list_outbound_responsibility_transfers Lists transfers that allow an account outside your organization to manage the specified responsibilities for your organization
list_parents Lists the root or organizational units (OUs) that serve as the immediate parent of the specified child OU or account
list_policies Retrieves the list of all policies in an organization of a specified type
list_policies_for_target Lists the policies that are directly attached to the specified target root, organizational unit (OU), or account
list_roots Lists the roots that are defined in the current organization
list_tags_for_resource Lists tags that are attached to the specified resource
list_targets_for_policy Lists all the roots, organizational units (OUs), and accounts that the specified policy is attached to
move_account Moves an account from its current source parent root or organizational unit (OU) to the specified destination parent root or OU
put_resource_policy Creates or updates a resource policy
register_delegated_administrator Enables the specified member account to administer the Organizations features of the specified Amazon Web Services service
remove_account_from_organization Removes the specified account from the organization
tag_resource Adds one or more tags to the specified resource
terminate_responsibility_transfer Ends a transfer
untag_resource Removes any tags with the specified keys from the specified resource
update_organizational_unit Renames the specified organizational unit (OU)
update_policy Updates an existing policy with a new name, description, or content
update_responsibility_transfer Updates a transfer

Examples

svc <- organizations()
# Bill is the owner of an organization, and he invites Juan's account
# (222222222222) to join his organization. The following example shows
# Juan's account accepting the handshake and thus agreeing to the
# invitation.
svc$accept_handshake(
  HandshakeId = "h-examplehandshakeid111"
)