aws-nuke

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Nuke a whole AWS account and delete all its resources.

Development Status aws-nuke is stable, but currently not all AWS resources are covered by it. Be encouraged to add missing resources and create a Pull Request or to create an Issue.

Caution!

Be aware that aws-nuke is a very destructive tool, hence you have to be very careful while using it. Otherwise you might delete production data.

To reduce the blast radius of accidents, there are some safety precautions:

1. By default aws-nuke only lists all nukeable resources. You need to add --no-dry-run to actually delete resources.
2. aws-nuke asks you twice to confirm the deletion by entering the account alias. The first time is directly after the start and the second time after listing all nukeable resources.
3. To avoid just displaying a account ID, which might gladly be ignored by humans, it is required to actually set an Account Alias for your account. Otherwise aws-nuke will abort.
4. The Account Alias must not contain the string prod. This string is hardcoded and it is recommended to add it to every actual production account (eg mycompany-production-ecr).
5. The config file contains a blacklist field. If the Account ID of the account you want to nuke is part of this blacklist, aws-nuke will abort. It is recommended, that you add every production account to this blacklist.
6. To ensure you just ignore the blacklisting feature, the blacklist must contains at least one Account ID.
7. The config file contains account specific settings (eg. filters). The account you want to nuke must be explicitly listed there.
8. To ensure to not accidentally delete a random account, it is required to specify a config file. It is recommended to have only a single config file and add it to a central repository. This way the account blacklist is way easier to manage and keep up to date.

Feel free to create an issue, if you have any ideas to improve the safety procedures.

Use Cases

• We are testing our Terraform code with Jenkins. Sometimes a Terraform run fails during development and messes up the account. With aws-nuke we can simply clean up the failed account so it can be reused for the next build.
• Our platform developers have their own AWS Accounts where they can create their own Kubernetes clusters for testing purposes. With aws-nuke it is very easy to clean up these account at the end of the day and keep the costs low.

Usage

At first you need to create a config file for aws-nuke. This is a minimal one:

regions:
- eu-west-1

account-blacklist:
- "999999999999" # production

accounts:
  "000000000000": {} # aws-nuke-example

With this config we can run aws-nuke:

$ aws-nuke -c config/nuke-config.yml --profile aws-nuke-example
aws-nuke version v1.0.39.gc2f318f - Fri Jul 28 16:26:41 CEST 2017 - c2f318f37b7d2dec0e646da3d4d05ab5296d5bce

Do you really want to nuke the account with the ID 000000000000 and the alias 'aws-nuke-example'?
Do you want to continue? Enter account alias to continue.
> aws-nuke-example

eu-west-1 - EC2DHCPOption - 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Instance - 'i-01b489457a60298dd' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2KeyPair - 'test' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2NetworkACL - 'acl-6482a303' - cannot delete default VPC
eu-west-1 - EC2RouteTable - 'rtb-ffe91e99' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-220e945a' - cannot delete group 'default'
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-f20f958a' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Subnet - 'subnet-154d844e' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Volume - 'vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2VPC - 'vpc-c6159fa1' - would remove
eu-west-1 - IAMUserAccessKey - 'my-user -> ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST' - would remove
eu-west-1 - IAMUserPolicyAttachment - 'my-user -> AdministratorAccess' - [UserName: "my-user", PolicyArn: "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess", PolicyName: "AdministratorAccess"] - would remove
eu-west-1 - IAMUser - 'my-user' - would remove
Scan complete: 13 total, 11 nukeable, 2 filtered.

Would delete these resources. Provide --no-dry-run to actually destroy resources.

As we see, aws-nuke only lists all found resources and exits. This is because the --no-dry-run flag is missing. Also it wants to delete the administrator. We don't want to do this, because we use this user to access our account. Therefore we have to extend the config so it ignores this user:

regions:
- eu-west-1

account-blacklist:
- "999999999999" # production

accounts:
  "000000000000": # aws-nuke-example
    filters:
      IAMUser:
      - "my-user"
      IAMUserPolicyAttachment:
      - "my-user -> AdministratorAccess"
      IAMUserAccessKey:
      - "my-user -> ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST"

$ aws-nuke -c config/nuke-config.yml --profile aws-nuke-example --no-dry-run
aws-nuke version v1.0.39.gc2f318f - Fri Jul 28 16:26:41 CEST 2017 - c2f318f37b7d2dec0e646da3d4d05ab5296d5bce

Do you really want to nuke the account with the ID 000000000000 and the alias 'aws-nuke-example'?
Do you want to continue? Enter account alias to continue.
> aws-nuke-example

eu-west-1 - EC2DHCPOption - 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Instance - 'i-01b489457a60298dd' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2KeyPair - 'test' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2NetworkACL - 'acl-6482a303' - cannot delete default VPC
eu-west-1 - EC2RouteTable - 'rtb-ffe91e99' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-220e945a' - cannot delete group 'default'
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-f20f958a' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Subnet - 'subnet-154d844e' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2Volume - 'vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2' - would remove
eu-west-1 - EC2VPC - 'vpc-c6159fa1' - would remove
eu-west-1 - IAMUserAccessKey - 'my-user -> ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST' - filtered by config
eu-west-1 - IAMUserPolicyAttachment - 'my-user -> AdministratorAccess' - [UserName: "my-user", PolicyArn: "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess", PolicyName: "AdministratorAccess"] - would remove
eu-west-1 - IAMUser - 'my-user' - filtered by config
Scan complete: 13 total, 8 nukeable, 5 filtered.

Do you really want to nuke these resources on the account with the ID 000000000000 and the alias 'aws-nuke-example'?
Do you want to continue? Enter account alias to continue.
> aws-nuke-example

eu-west-1 - EC2DHCPOption - 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' - DependencyViolation: The dhcpOptions 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: 9665c066-6bb1-4643-9071-f03481f80d4e
eu-west-1 - EC2Instance - 'i-01b489457a60298dd' - triggered remove
eu-west-1 - EC2KeyPair - 'test' - triggered remove
eu-west-1 - EC2RouteTable - 'rtb-ffe91e99' - DependencyViolation: The routeTable 'rtb-ffe91e99' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: 3f667620-3207-4576-ae68-0b75261c0504
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-f20f958a' - DependencyViolation: resource sg-f20f958a has a dependent object
    status code: 400, request id: 5da5819d-8df5-4ced-b88f-9028e93d3cee
eu-west-1 - EC2Subnet - 'subnet-154d844e' - DependencyViolation: The subnet 'subnet-154d844e' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: 237186aa-b035-4f64-a6e3-518bed64e240
eu-west-1 - EC2Volume - 'vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2' - VolumeInUse: Volume vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2 is currently attached to i-01b489457a60298dd
    status code: 400, request id: f88ff792-a17f-4fdd-9219-78a937a8d058
eu-west-1 - EC2VPC - 'vpc-c6159fa1' - DependencyViolation: The vpc 'vpc-c6159fa1' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
eu-west-1 - S3Object - 's3://rebuy-terraform-state-138758637120/run-terraform.lock' - triggered remove

Removal requested: 2 waiting, 6 failed, 5 skipped, 0 finished

eu-west-1 - EC2DHCPOption - 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' - DependencyViolation: The dhcpOptions 'dopt-bf2ec3d8' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: d85d26e8-9f6f-42f0-811a-3b05471b0254
eu-west-1 - EC2Instance - 'i-01b489457a60298dd' - waiting
eu-west-1 - EC2KeyPair - 'test' - removed
eu-west-1 - EC2RouteTable - 'rtb-ffe91e99' - DependencyViolation: The routeTable 'rtb-ffe91e99' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: adb44c0e-3f5b-4977-b2ae-7582f57fb4b7
eu-west-1 - EC2SecurityGroup - 'sg-f20f958a' - DependencyViolation: resource sg-f20f958a has a dependent object
    status code: 400, request id: c4149482-0cd2-40e0-8fa0-84a61d55a158
eu-west-1 - EC2Subnet - 'subnet-154d844e' - DependencyViolation: The subnet 'subnet-154d844e' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: ba0649ba-3be8-41ee-ae0f-6b74a1f0a873
eu-west-1 - EC2Volume - 'vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2' - VolumeInUse: Volume vol-0ddfb15461a00c3e2 is currently attached to i-01b489457a60298dd
    status code: 400, request id: 9ac3eac5-f1ef-4337-a780-228295a7ebc7
eu-west-1 - EC2VPC - 'vpc-c6159fa1' - DependencyViolation: The vpc 'vpc-c6159fa1' has dependencies and cannot be deleted.
    status code: 400, request id: 89f870e9-1ffa-42be-9f73-76c29f088e1a

Removal requested: 1 waiting, 6 failed, 5 skipped, 1 finished

--- truncating long output ---

As you see aws-nuke now tries to delete all resources which aren't filtered, without caring about the dependencies between them. This results in API errors which can be ignored. They are displayed anyway, because it might be helpful for debugging, if the error is not about dependencies.

aws-nuke retries deleting all resources until all specified ones are deleted or until there are only resources with errors left.

AWS Credentials

There are two ways to authenticate aws-nuke. There are static credentials and profiles. The later one can be configured in the shared credentials file (ie ~/.aws/credentials) or the shared config file (ie ~/.aws/config).

To use static credentials the command line flags --access-key-id and --secret-access-key are required. The flag --session-token is only required for temporary sessions.

To use shared profiles the command line flag --profile is required. The profile must be either defined with static credentials in the shared credential file or in shared config file with an assuming role.

Specifying Resource Types to Delete

aws-nuke deletes a lot of resources and there might be added more at any release. Eventually, every resources should get deleted. You might want to restrict which resources to delete. There are multiple ways to configure this.

One way are filters, which already got mentioned. This requires to know the identifier of each resource. It is also possible to prevent whole resource types (eg S3Bucket) from getting deleted with two methods.

• The --target flag limits nuking to the specified resource types.
• The --exclude flag prevent nuking of the specified resource types.

It is also possible to configure the resource types in the config file like in these examples:

---
regions:
  - "eu-west-1"
account-blacklist:
- 1234567890

resource-types:
  # only nuke these three resources
  targets:
  - S3Object
  - S3Bucket
  - IAMRole

accounts:
  555133742: {}

---
regions:
  - "eu-west-1"
account-blacklist:
- 1234567890

resource-types:
  # don't nuke IAM users
  excludes:
  - IAMUser

accounts:
  555133742: {}

If targets are specified in multiple places (eg CLI and account specific), then a resource type must be specified in all places. In other words each configuration limits the previous ones.

If an exclude is used, then all its resource types will not be deleted.

Hint: You can see all available resource types with this command:

aws-nuke resource-types

Filtering Resources

It is possible to filter this is important for not deleting the current user for example or for resources like S3 Buckets which have a globally shared namespace and might be hard to recreate. Currently the filtering is based on the resource identifier. The identifier will be printed as the first step of aws-nuke (eg i-01b489457a60298dd for an EC2 instance).

The filters are part of the account-specific configuration and are grouped by resource types. This is an example of a config that deletes all resources but the admin user with its access permissions and two access keys:

---
regions:
- global
- eu-west-1

account-blacklist:
- 1234567890

accounts:
  0987654321:
    filters:
      IAMUser:
      - "admin"
      IAMUserPolicyAttachment:
      - "admin -> AdministratorAccess"
      IAMUserAccessKey:
      - "admin -> AKSDAFRETERSDF"
      - "admin -> AFGDSGRTEWSFEY"

Any resource whose resource identifier exactly matches any of the filters in the list will be skipped. These will be marked as "filtered by config" on the aws-nuke run.

Filter Properties

Some resources support filtering via properties. When a resource support these properties, they will be listed in the output like in this example:

global - IAMUserPolicyAttachment - 'admin -> AdministratorAccess' - [RoleName: "admin", PolicyArn: "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess", PolicyName: "AdministratorAccess"] - would remove

To use properties, it is required to specify a object with properties and value instead of the plain string.

These types can be used to simplify the configuration. For example, it is possible to protect all access keys of a single user:

IAMUserAccessKey:
- property: UserName
  value: "admin"

Filter Types

There are also additional comparision types than an exact match:

• exact – The identifier must exactly match the given string. This is the default.
• contains – The identifier must contain the given string.
• glob – The identifier must match against the given glob pattern. This means the string might contains wildcards like * and ?. Note that globbing is designed for file paths, so the wildcards do not match the directory separator (/). Details about the glob pattern can be found in the library documentation.
• regex – The identifier must match against the given regular expression. Details about the syntax can be found in the library documentation.

To use a non-default comparision type, it is required to specify a object with type and value instead of the plain string.

These types can be used to simplify the configuration. For example, it is possible to protect all access keys of a single user by using glob:

IAMUserAccessKey:
- type: glob
  value: "admin -> *"

Using Them Together

It is also possible to use Filter Properties and Filter Types together. For example to protect all Hosted Zone of a specific TLD:

Route53HostedZone:
- property: Name
  type: glob
  value: "*.rebuy.cloud."

Inverting Filter Results

Any filter result can be inverted by using invert: true, for example:

CloudFormationStack:
- property: Name
  value: "foo"
  invert: true

In this case any CloudFormationStack but the ones called "foo" will be filtered. Be aware that aws-nuke internally takes every resource and applies every filter on it. If a filter matches, it marks the node as filtered.

Install

Use Released Binaries

The easiest way of installing it, is to download the latest release from GitHub.

Compile from Source

To compile aws-nuke from source you need a working Golang development environment. The sources must be cloned to $GOPATH/src/github.com/rebuy-de/aws-nuke.

Also you need to install Glide, golint and GNU Make.

Then you just need to run make build to compile a binary into the project directory or make install go install aws-nuke into $GOPATH/bin. With make xc you can cross compile aws-nuke for other platforms.

Contact Channels

Feel free to create a GitHub Issue for any questions, bug reports or feature requests.

Contribute

You can contribute to aws-nuke by forking this repository, making your changes and creating a Pull Request against our repository. If you are unsure how to solve a problem or have other questions about a contributions, please create a GitHub issue.