Question 1hardmultiple choice
Full question →hardmultiple choiceObjective-mapped
A company has an IAM policy that allows access to an S3 bucket only if the request comes from a specific VPC endpoint. The developer notices that requests from an EC2 instance in that VPC are being denied. What is the most likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.
A
Best answer
The VPC endpoint policy does not allow the required S3 action for the principal
VPC endpoint policies can restrict what actions are allowed through the endpoint. If the policy denies 's3:GetObject' for the role or user, access will be denied even if IAM and bucket policies allow it.
B
Distractor review
The bucket policy does not have a condition checking aws:SourceVpce
If the IAM policy already restricts to the VPC endpoint, the bucket policy may not need the condition. The denial is likely from the endpoint policy, not the absence of a condition.
C
Distractor review
The route table does not have a route to the S3 endpoint
Missing route would cause network connectivity failure (e.g., timeout), not an IAM authorization denial.
D
Distractor review
The security group does not allow outbound HTTPS traffic
Security groups control network traffic. If HTTPS is blocked, the request would time out, not return an access denied error.
Common exam trap
Common exam trap: authentication is not authorization
Logging in proves the user can authenticate. It does not automatically mean the user is allowed to enter privileged or configuration mode. Watch for AAA authorization, privilege level and command authorization details.
Technical deep dive
How to think about this question
This kind of question is testing the difference between identity and permission. A user may successfully log in to a router because authentication is working, but still fail to enter configuration mode because authorization is missing, misconfigured or mapped to a lower privilege level.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Authentication checks who the user is.
- Authorization controls what the user is allowed to do after login.
- Privilege levels affect access to EXEC and configuration commands.
- AAA, TACACS+ and RADIUS can separate login success from command access.
TExam Day Tips
- Do not assume successful login means full administrative access.
- Look for words such as cannot enter configuration mode, privilege level, authorization or command access.
- Separate login problems from permission problems before choosing the answer.
Related practice questions
Related DVA-C02 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
More questions from this exam
Keep practising from the same exam bank, or move into a focused topic page if this question exposed a weak area.
Question 1
A developer is building a REST API using Amazon API Gateway that will serve static content from an Amazon S3 bucket. The API should cache responses for frequently accessed objects to reduce latency. Which API Gateway feature should the developer enable?
Question 2
A developer is running a web application on multiple Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The application needs to store user session state that must be available across all instances. The session data is small and temporary but must survive individual instance failures. Which AWS service should the developer use to store this session state?
Question 3
A developer has an AWS Lambda function that processes messages from an Amazon SQS standard queue. The function is idempotent and currently has a batch size of 10. The developer wants to increase throughput and increases the batch size to 100. After the change, CloudWatch metrics show a significant increase in throttles and the queue backlog is growing. The function's reserved concurrency is set to 10. What is the most effective action to resolve the throttling and improve throughput?
Question 4
A developer is managing an application running on Amazon EC2 instances behind an Application Load Balancer. Users report that the application becomes unresponsive after several hours, and restarting the instance temporarily fixes the issue. The developer suspects a memory leak but cannot add custom instrumentation. Which AWS service can collect memory utilization metrics and help identify the memory leak with minimal configuration?
Question 5
A developer is building a serverless web application using AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB. The application needs to perform complex aggregations on data stored in DynamoDB. Which AWS service should the developer use to perform these aggregations efficiently without reading all the data into Lambda?
Question 6
A developer has an Amazon S3 bucket containing private user documents. The application must generate a time-limited URL for users to download their own documents without requiring the users to have AWS credentials. Which solution should the developer use?
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this DVA-C02 question test?
Authentication checks who the user is.
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The VPC endpoint policy does not allow the required S3 action for the principal — VPC endpoints have their own policy that can explicitly deny or allow actions. Even if the bucket policy and IAM policy permit access, if the VPC endpoint policy denies the action (or does not explicitly allow it for the principal), the request will be denied. The other options are less likely: bucket policy with aws:SourceVpce condition would be correct if present, route table issues would prevent connectivity not deny requests, and security groups control network traffic but not S3 authorization at the endpoint level.
What should I do if I get this DVA-C02 question wrong?
Then try more questions from the same exam bank and focus on understanding why the wrong options are tempting.
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