User Authentication for AI Training Platforms on AWS

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To set up user authentication for AI training platforms on AWS, we will use Amazon Cognito. Amazon Cognito provides authentication, authorization, and user management for your web and mobile apps. Users can sign in directly with a username and password or through a third party such as Facebook, Amazon, or Google.

The core components we'll use are:
- **User Pools**: These will act as user directories that provide sign-up and sign-in options for app users.
- **User Pool Client**: This acts as an entity that has permissions to call unauthenticated APIs (like creating a new user).
- **Identity Pools (optional)**: If you have the need to grant users access to other AWS services, Identity Pools can provide AWS credentials to users so they can access other AWS services directly.

Here's a basic outline of the steps we'll take in the Pulumi program:
1. Create a Cognito User Pool - where user accounts will reside.
2. Create User Pool Client - which will allow users to interact with the User Pool.
3. Export necessary information for use in the application, such as User Pool ID and User Pool Client ID.

### Pulumi Program for User Authentication on AWS

Below is a Pulumi program written in Python that sets up user authentication with AWS Cognito for an AI training platform:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_aws as aws

# Create a new Cognito User Pool
user_pool = aws.cognito.UserPool("aiUserPool",
                                 name="ai_training_user_pool",
                                 password_policy=aws.cognito.UserPoolPasswordPolicyArgs(
                                     minimum_length=8,
                                     require_lowercase=True,
                                     require_numbers=True,
                                     require_symbols=True,
                                     require_uppercase=True,
                                 ))

# Create a Cognito User Pool Client
user_pool_client = aws.cognito.UserPoolClient("aiUserPoolClient",
                                              name="ai_training_user_pool_client",
                                              user_pool_id=user_pool.id,
                                              explicit_auth_flows=["ADMIN_NO_SRP_AUTH"],
                                              generate_secret=True)

# (Optional) Create an Identity Pool which allows users to federate through social IdPs or SAML
# identity_pool = aws.cognito.IdentityPool("aiIdentityPool",
#                                          name="ai_training_identity_pool",
#                                          allow_unauthenticated_identities=False, # Set to True to allow unauth access
#                                          cognito_identity_providers=[aws.cognito.IdentityPoolCognitoIdentityProviderArgs(
#                                              client_id=user_pool_client.id,
#                                              provider_name=user_pool.endpoint,
#                                          )])

# Export the IDs of the user pool and user pool client
pulumi.export('user_pool_id', user_pool.id)
pulumi.export('user_pool_client_id', user_pool_client.id)
# pulumi.export('identity_pool_id', identity_pool.id)  # Uncomment if using Identity Pools
```

This program starts by importing the necessary modules: `pulumi` for general infrastructure orchestration and `pulumi_aws` which contains AWS resources. We then proceed to define and create the Cognito User Pool, which serves as the user directory and authentication handler. The password policy ensures a certain level of complexity for user passwords.

Next, we create the User Pool Client. This client will enable our application to interact with the Cognito User Pool, allowing us to implement operations like signing up a new user or user authentication. The `explicit_auth_flows` property is set to enable admin-based authentication without SRP (Secure Remote Password protocol), and `generate_secret` determines if a client secret is generated.

Optionally, if you need to provide authenticated access to other AWS services, you can create an Identity Pool. The Identity Pool federates users from the User Pool to AWS(sts:assumeRoleWithWebIdentity), granting them AWS resources access. This has been commented out in the program but is there if you need it.

Finally, the program exports the User Pool ID and User Pool Client ID, which will be used in your AI training application to reference the authentication setup.

The above program can be executed via the Pulumi CLI after setting up AWS credentials. It is assumed the user has configured their AWS provider with `pulumi config set aws:region us-east-1` (or any other preferred AWS region). Once executed, the Cognito User Pool and Client will be provisioned and ready to use in your application.