Working with IAM Assumed Roles

AWS “IAM Assumed Roles” allows applications to change the AWS role with which to authenticate with AWS services. The assumed roles can have different rights from the main user login.

The S3A connector supports assumed roles for authentication with AWS. A full set of login credentials must be provided, which will be used to obtain the assumed role and refresh it regularly. By using per-filesystem configuration, it is possible to use different assumed roles for different buckets.

IAM Assumed Roles are unlikely to be supported by third-party systems supporting the S3 APIs.

Using IAM Assumed Roles

Before You Begin

This document assumes you know about IAM Assumed roles, what they are, how to configure their policies, etc.

  • You need a role to assume, and know its “ARN”.
  • You need a pair of long-lived IAM User credentials, not the root account set.
  • Have the AWS CLI installed, and test that it works there.
  • Give the role access to S3.
  • For working with data encrypted with SSE-KMS, the role must have access to the appropriate KMS keys.

Trying to learn how IAM Assumed Roles work by debugging stack traces from the S3A client is “suboptimal”.

How the S3A connector supports IAM Assumed Roles.

The S3A connector support IAM Assumed Roles in two ways:

  1. Using the full credentials on the client to request credentials for a specific role -credentials which are then used for all the store operations. This can be used to verify that a specific role has the access permissions you need, or to “su” into a role which has permissions that’s the full accounts does not directly qualify for -such as access to a KMS key.
  2. Using the full credentials to request role credentials which are then propagated into a launched application as delegation tokens. This extends the previous use as it allows the jobs to be submitted to a shared cluster with the permissions of the requested role, rather than those of the VMs/Containers of the deployed cluster.

For Delegation Token integration, see (Delegation Tokens)[delegation_tokens.html]

To for Assumed Role authentication, the client must be configured to use the Assumed Role Credential Provider, org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider, in the configuration option fs.s3a.aws.credentials.provider.

This AWS Credential provider will read in the fs.s3a.assumed.role options needed to connect to the Security Token Service Assumed Role API, first authenticating with the full credentials, then assuming the specific role specified. It will then refresh this login at the configured rate of fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.duration

To authenticate with the AWS STS service both for the initial credential retrieval and for background refreshes, a different credential provider must be created, one which uses long-lived credentials (secret keys, environment variables). Short lived credentials (e.g other session tokens, EC2 instance credentials) cannot be used.

A list of providers can be set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider; if unset the standard BasicAWSCredentialsProvider credential provider is used, which uses fs.s3a.access.key and fs.s3a.secret.key.

Note: although you can list other AWS credential providers in to the Assumed Role Credential Provider, it can only cause confusion.

Configuring Assumed Roles

To use assumed roles, the S3A client credentials provider must be set to the AssumedRoleCredentialProvider, and fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn to the previously created ARN.

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.aws.credentials.provider</name>
  <value>org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider</value>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn</name>
  <value>arn:aws:iam::90066806600238:role/s3-restricted</value>
</property>

The STS service itself needs the caller to be authenticated, which can only be done with a set of long-lived credentials. This means the normal fs.s3a.access.key and fs.s3a.secret.key pair, environment variables, or some other supplier of long-lived secrets.

The default is the fs.s3a.access.key and fs.s3a.secret.key pair. If you wish to use a different authentication mechanism, set it in the property fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider.

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider</name>
  <value>org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.SimpleAWSCredentialsProvider</value>
</property>

Requirements for long-lived credentials notwithstanding, this option takes the same values as fs.s3a.aws.credentials.provider.

The safest way to manage AWS secrets is via Hadoop Credential Providers.

Assumed Role Configuration Options

Here are the full set of configuration options.

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn</name>
  <value />
  <description>
    AWS ARN for the role to be assumed.
    Required if the fs.s3a.aws.credentials.provider contains
    org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.name</name>
  <value />
  <description>
    Session name for the assumed role, must be valid characters according to
    the AWS APIs.
    Only used if AssumedRoleCredentialProvider is the AWS credential provider.
    If not set, one is generated from the current Hadoop/Kerberos username.
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.external.id</name>
  <value>arbitrary value, specific by user in AWS console</value>
  <description>
    External id for assumed role, it's an optional configuration. "https://aws.amazon.com/cn/blogs/security/how-to-use-external-id-when-granting-access-to-your-aws-resources/"
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.policy</name>
  <value/>
  <description>
    JSON policy to apply to the role.
    Only used if AssumedRoleCredentialProvider is the AWS credential provider.
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.duration</name>
  <value>30m</value>
  <description>
    Duration of assumed roles before a refresh is attempted.
    Only used if AssumedRoleCredentialProvider is the AWS credential provider.
    Range: 15m to 1h
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint</name>
  <value/>
  <description>
    AWS Security Token Service Endpoint. If unset, uses the default endpoint.
    Only used if AssumedRoleCredentialProvider is the AWS credential provider.
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint.region</name>
  <value>us-west-1</value>
  <description>
    AWS Security Token Service Endpoint's region;
    Needed if fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint points to an endpoint
    other than the default one and the v4 signature is used.
    Only used if AssumedRoleCredentialProvider is the AWS credential provider.
  </description>
</property>

<property>
  <name>fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider</name>
  <value>org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.SimpleAWSCredentialsProvider,
    software.amazon.awssdk.auth.credentials.EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider
  </value>
  <description>
    List of credential providers to authenticate with the STS endpoint and
    retrieve short-lived role credentials.
    Used by AssumedRoleCredentialProvider and the S3A Session Delegation Token
    and S3A Role Delegation Token bindings.
  </description>
</property>

Restricting S3A operations through AWS Policies

The S3A client needs to be granted specific permissions in order to work with a bucket. Here is a non-normative list of the permissions which must be granted for FileSystem operations to work.

Disclaimer The specific set of actions which the S3A connector needs will change over time.

As more operations are added to the S3A connector, and as the means by which existing operations are implemented change, the AWS actions which are required by the client will change.

These lists represent the minimum actions to which the client’s principal must have in order to work with a bucket.

Read Access Permissions

Permissions which must be granted when reading from a bucket:

s3:Get*
s3:ListBucket

To use SSE-KMS encryption, the client needs the SSE-KMS Permissions to access the KMS key(s).

Write Access Permissions

These permissions must all be granted for write access:

s3:Get*
s3:Delete*
s3:Put*
s3:ListBucket
s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads
s3:AbortMultipartUpload

SSE-KMS Permissions

When to read data encrypted using SSE-KMS, the client must have kms:Decrypt permission for the specific key a file was encrypted with.

kms:Decrypt

To write data using SSE-KMS, the client must have all the following permissions.

kms:Decrypt
kms:GenerateDataKey

This includes renaming: renamed files are encrypted with the encryption key of the current S3A client; it must decrypt the source file first.

If the caller doesn’t have these permissions, the operation will fail with an AccessDeniedException: the S3 Store does not provide the specifics of the cause of the failure.

Mixed Permissions in a single S3 Bucket

Mixing permissions down the “directory tree” is limited only to the extent of supporting writeable directories under read-only parent paths.

Disclaimer: When a client lacks write access up the entire directory tree, there are no guarantees of consistent filesystem views or operations.

Particular troublespots are “directory markers” and failures of non-atomic operations, particularly rename() and delete().

A directory marker such as /users/ will not be deleted if the user alice creates a directory /users/alice and she only has access to /users/alice.

When a path or directory is deleted, the parent directory may not exist afterwards. In the example above, if alice deletes /users/alice and there are no other entries under /users/alice, then the directory marker /users/ cannot be created. The directory /users will not exist in listings, getFileStatus("/users") or similar.

Rename will fail if it cannot delete the items it has just copied, that is rename(read-only-source, writeable-dest) will fail —but only after performing the COPY of the data. Even though the operation failed, for a single file copy, the destination file will exist. For a directory copy, only a partial copy of the source data may take place before the permission failure is raised.

Example: Read access to the base, R/W to the path underneath

This example has the base bucket read only, and a directory underneath, /users/alice/ granted full R/W access.

{
  "Version" : "2012-10-17",
  "Statement" : [ {
    "Sid" : "4",
    "Effect" : "Allow",
    "Action" : [
      "s3:ListBucket",
      "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads",
      "s3:Get*"
      ],
    "Resource" : "arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/*"
  }, {
    "Sid" : "5",
    "Effect" : "Allow",
    "Action" : [
      "s3:Get*",
      "s3:PutObject",
      "s3:DeleteObject",
      "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
      "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts" ],
    "Resource" : [
      "arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/users/alice/*",
      "arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/users/alice",
      "arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/users/alice/"
      ]
  } ]
}

Note how three resources are provided to represent the path /users/alice

Path Matches
/users/alice Any file alice created under /users
/users/alice/ The directory marker alice/ created under /users
/users/alice/* All files and directories under the path /users/alice

Note that the resource arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/users/alice* cannot be used to refer to all of these paths, because it would also cover adjacent paths like /users/alice2 and /users/alicebob.

Troubleshooting Assumed Roles

  1. Make sure the role works and the user trying to enter it can do so from AWS the command line before trying to use the S3A client.
  2. Try to access the S3 bucket with reads and writes from the AWS CLI.
  3. With the Hadoop configuration set too use the role, try to read data from the hadoop fs CLI: hadoop fs -ls -p s3a://bucket/
  4. With the hadoop CLI, try to create a new directory with a request such as hadoop fs -mkdirs -p s3a://bucket/path/p1/

IOException: “Unset property fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn”

The Assumed Role Credential Provider is enabled, but fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn is unset.

java.io.IOException: Unset property fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider.<init>(AssumedRoleCredentialProvider.java:76)

“Not authorized to perform sts:AssumeRole”

This can arise if the role ARN set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.arn is invalid or one to which the caller has no access.

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: : Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider
  Not authorized to perform sts:AssumeRole (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403;
   Error Code: AccessDenied; Request ID: aad4e59a-f4b0-11e7-8c78-f36aaa9457f6):AccessDenied

“Roles may not be assumed by root accounts”

You can’t assume a role with the root account of an AWS account; you need to create a new user and give it the permission to change into the role.

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: : Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider

    Roles may not be assumed by root accounts. (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403; Error Code: AccessDenied;
    Request ID: e86dfd8f-e758-11e7-88e7-ad127c04b5e2):
    No AWS Credentials provided by AssumedRoleCredentialProvider :
    software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
    Roles may not be assumed by root accounts. (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService;
     Status Code: 403; Error Code: AccessDenied; Request ID: e86dfd8f-e758-11e7-88e7-ad127c04b5e2)


Member must have value greater than or equal to 900

The value of fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.duration is too low.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException: request role credentials:
software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
1 validation error detected: Value '20' at 'durationSeconds' failed to satisfy constraint:
Member must have value greater than or equal to 900 (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService;
Status Code: 400; Error Code: ValidationError;
Request ID: b9a82403-d0a7-11e8-98ef-596679ee890d)

Fix: increase.

Error “The requested DurationSeconds exceeds the MaxSessionDuration set for this role”

The value of fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.duration is too high.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException: request role credentials:
 software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
The requested DurationSeconds exceeds the MaxSessionDuration set for this role.
(Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400;
 Error Code: ValidationError; Request ID: 17875165-d0a7-11e8-b85f-d15a599a7f6d)

There are two solutions to this

  • Decrease the duration value.
  • Increase the duration of a role in the AWS IAM Console.

“Value ‘345600’ at ‘durationSeconds’ failed to satisfy constraint: Member must have value less than or equal to 43200”

Irrespective of the maximum duration of a role, the AWS role API only permits callers to request any role for up to 12h; attempting to use a larger number will fail.

Caused by: software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
1 validation error detected:
Value '345600' at 'durationSeconds' failed to satisfy constraint:
Member must have value less than or equal to 43200
(Service: AWSSecurityTokenService;
Status Code: 400; Error Code:
ValidationError;
Request ID: dec1ca6b-d0aa-11e8-ac8c-4119b3ea9f7f)

For full sessions, the duration limit is 129600 seconds: 36h.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException: request session credentials:
software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
1 validation error detected: Value '345600' at 'durationSeconds' failed to satisfy constraint:
Member must have value less than or equal to 129600
(Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: ValidationError;
Request ID: a6e73d44-d0aa-11e8-95ed-c5bba29f0635)

For both these errors, the sole fix is to request a shorter duration in fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.duration.

MalformedPolicyDocumentException “The policy is not in the valid JSON format”

The policy set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.policy is not valid according to the AWS specification of Role Policies.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException: Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider on :
 software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.MalformedPolicyDocumentException:
  The policy is not in the valid JSON format. (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400;
   Error Code: MalformedPolicyDocument; Request ID: baf8cb62-f552-11e7-9768-9df3b384e40c):
   MalformedPolicyDocument: The policy is not in the valid JSON format.
   (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: MalformedPolicyDocument;
    Request ID: baf8cb62-f552-11e7-9768-9df3b384e40c)

MalformedPolicyDocumentException “Syntax errors in policy”

The policy set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.policy is not valid JSON.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException:
Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider on :
 software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.MalformedPolicyDocumentException:
  Syntax errors in policy. (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService;
  Status Code: 400; Error Code: MalformedPolicyDocument;
  Request ID: 24a281e8-f553-11e7-aa91-a96becfb4d45):
  MalformedPolicyDocument: Syntax errors in policy.
  (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: MalformedPolicyDocument;
  Request ID: 24a281e8-f553-11e7-aa91-a96becfb4d45)

IOException: “AssumedRoleCredentialProvider cannot be in fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider”

You can’t use the Assumed Role Credential Provider as the provider in fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider.

java.io.IOException: AssumedRoleCredentialProvider cannot be in fs.s3a.assumed.role.credentials.provider
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider.<init>(AssumedRoleCredentialProvider.java:86)
  at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
  at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
  at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
  at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AUtils.createAWSCredentialProvider(S3AUtils.java:583)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AUtils.createAWSCredentialProviderSet(S3AUtils.java:520)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.DefaultS3ClientFactory.createS3Client(DefaultS3ClientFactory.java:52)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.S3AFileSystem.initialize(S3AFileSystem.java:252)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem.createFileSystem(FileSystem.java:3354)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.FileSystem.get(FileSystem.java:474)
  at org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path.getFileSystem(Path.java:361)

AWSBadRequestException: “not a valid key=value pair”

There’s an space or other typo in the fs.s3a.access.key or fs.s3a.secret.key values used for the inner authentication which is breaking signature creation.

 org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException: Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider
  on : software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
   'valid/20180109/us-east-1/sts/aws4_request' not a valid key=value pair (missing equal-sign) in Authorization header:
    'AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=not valid/20180109/us-east-1/sts/aws4_request,
    SignedHeaders=amz-sdk-invocation-id;amz-sdk-retry;host;user-agent;x-amz-date.
    (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code:
    IncompleteSignature; Request ID: c4a8841d-f556-11e7-99f9-af005a829416):IncompleteSignature:
    'valid/20180109/us-east-1/sts/aws4_request' not a valid key=value pair (missing equal-sign)
    in Authorization header: 'AWS4-HMAC-SHA256 Credential=not valid/20180109/us-east-1/sts/aws4_request,
    SignedHeaders=amz-sdk-invocation-id;amz-sdk-retry;host;user-agent;x-amz-date,
    (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: IncompleteSignature;

AccessDeniedException/InvalidClientTokenId: “The security token included in the request is invalid”

The credentials used to authenticate with the AWS Security Token Service are invalid.

[ERROR] Failures:
[ERROR] java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: : Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider on :
 software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
  The security token included in the request is invalid.
  (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403; Error Code: InvalidClientTokenId;
   Request ID: 74aa7f8a-f557-11e7-850c-33d05b3658d7):InvalidClientTokenId

AWSSecurityTokenServiceExceptiond: “Member must satisfy regular expression pattern: [\w+=,.@-]*

The session name, as set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.session.name must match the wildcard [\w+=,.@-]*.

If the property is unset, it is extracted from the current username and then sanitized to match these constraints. If set explicitly, it must be valid.

org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSBadRequestException:
 Instantiate org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.auth.AssumedRoleCredentialProvider on
    software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
    1 validation error detected: Value 'Session Names cannot Hava Spaces!' at 'roleSessionName'
    failed to satisfy constraint: Member must satisfy regular expression pattern: [\w+=,.@-]*
    (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: ValidationError;
    Request ID: 7c437acb-f55d-11e7-9ad8-3b5e4f701c20):ValidationError:
    1 validation error detected: Value 'Session Names cannot Hava Spaces!' at 'roleSessionName'
    failed to satisfy constraint: Member must satisfy regular expression pattern: [\w+=,.@-]*
    (Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 400; Error Code: ValidationError;

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException within a FileSystem API call

If an operation fails with an AccessDeniedException, then the role does not have the permission for the S3 Operation invoked during the call.

> hadoop fs -touch  s3a://noaa-isd-pds/a

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: a: Writing Object on a:
 software.amazon.awssdk.services.s3.model.S3Exception: Access Denied
 (Service: S3, Status Code: 403, Request ID: F08EV50F85AYKF1V, Extended Request ID: 75vMz9xWNP5/lYplPSZfm/i4yQ5q0G32SIwOwfaj6a8gNCRj9tLBAqcLaaexT/aNg2DhWZQPvDU=):AccessDenied

This is the policy restriction behaving as intended: the caller is trying to perform an action which is forbidden.

  1. If a policy has been set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.policy then it must declare all permissions which the caller is allowed to perform. The existing role policies act as an outer constraint on what the caller can perform, but are not inherited.

  2. If the policy for a bucket is set up with complex rules on different paths, check the path for the operation.

  3. The policy may have omitted one or more actions which are required. Make sure that all the read and write permissions are allowed for any bucket/path to which data is being written to, and read permissions for all buckets read from.

AccessDeniedException When working with KMS-encrypted data

If the bucket is using SSE-KMS to encrypt data:

  1. The caller must have the kms:Decrypt permission to read the data.
  2. The caller needs kms:Decrypt and kms:GenerateDataKey to write data.

Without permissions, the request fails and there is no explicit message indicating that this is an encryption-key issue.

This problem is most obvious when you fail when writing data in a “Writing Object” operation.

If the client does have write access to the bucket, verify that the caller has kms:GenerateDataKey permissions for the encryption key in use.

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: test/testDTFileSystemClient: Writing Object on test/testDTFileSystemClient:
  software.amazon.awssdk.services.s3.model.S3Exception: Access Denied (Service: Amazon S3; Status Code: 403;
  Error Code: AccessDenied; Request ID: E86544FF1D029857)

Note: the ability to read encrypted data in the store does not guarantee that the caller can encrypt new data. It is a separate permission.

Error Unable to execute HTTP request

This is a low-level networking error. Possible causes include:

  • The endpoint set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint is invalid.
  • There are underlying network problems.
org.apache.hadoop.fs.s3a.AWSClientIOException: request session credentials:

  Unable to execute HTTP request: null: Unable to execute HTTP request: null

Error “Credential should be scoped to a valid region”

This is based on conflict between the values of fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint and fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint.region Two variants, “not '''”

Variant 1: Credential should be scoped to a valid region, not 'us-west-1' (or other string)

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: : request session credentials:
software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
Credential should be scoped to a valid region, not 'us-west-1'.
(Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403; Error Code: SignatureDoesNotMatch; Request ID: d9065cc4-e2b9-11e8-8b7b-f35cb8d7aea4):SignatureDoesNotMatch

One of:

  • the value of fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint.region is not a valid region
  • the value of fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint.region is not the signing region of the endpoint set in fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint

Variant 2: Credential should be scoped to a valid region, not ''

java.nio.file.AccessDeniedException: : request session credentials:
software.amazon.awssdk.services.sts.model.StsException:
  Credential should be scoped to a valid region, not ''. (
  Service: AWSSecurityTokenService; Status Code: 403; Error Code: SignatureDoesNotMatch;
  Request ID: bd3e5121-e2ac-11e8-a566-c1a4d66b6a16):SignatureDoesNotMatch

This should be intercepted earlier: an endpoint has been specified but not a region.

There’s special handling for the central sts.amazonaws.com region; when that is declared as the value of fs.s3a.assumed.role.sts.endpoint.region then there is no need to declare a region: whatever value it has is ignored.