DOP-C02 Configuration Management and IaC Practice Question
This DOP-C02 practice question tests your understanding of configuration management and iac. The scenario asks you to isolate a root cause — eliminate options that address a different problem before choosing. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Refer to the exhibit. A DevOps engineer is troubleshooting an issue where an IAM user is unable to stop an EC2 instance with the tag 'Environment: Development'. The attached IAM policy is shown. Which statement explains the failure?
The Deny statement condition incorrectly uses StringNotEquals, which denies all instances except those with the Production tag.
Why wrong: Incorrect. The Deny statement denies ec2:RunInstances, not ec2:StopInstances. The condition StringNotEquals applies only to RunInstances, so it does not affect stopping instances.
B
The Deny statement includes ec2:StopInstances implicitly because stop is a termination action.
Why wrong: Incorrect. The action ec2:StopInstances is not implicitly included in ec2:RunInstances. The Deny statement only covers launching instances, not stopping them.
C
The Allow statement only grants ec2:DescribeInstances, not start/stop.
Correct. The Allow statement only includes ec2:DescribeInstances. Since there is no explicit Allow for ec2:StopInstances, the action is implicitly denied, causing the failure to stop the instance.
D
The policy does not prevent stopping instances with the Development tag; the failure must be caused by another policy or service control policy.
Why wrong: Incorrect. The policy itself denies ec2:StopInstances by omission (no Allow). The failure is directly due to this missing permission, not necessarily another policy or SCP.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The Allow statement only grants ec2:DescribeInstances, not start/stop.
The IAM policy in the exhibit only grants ec2:DescribeInstances and explicitly denies ec2:RunInstances with a condition. It does not include an Allow for ec2:StopInstances. By default, IAM denies any action that is not explicitly allowed. Therefore, the user lacks permission to stop instances, including the Development-tagged instance. Option C correctly identifies this as the reason for the failure. Option D is incorrect because the policy itself denies stop implicitly due to the missing Allow; it is not necessary to invoke another policy or SCP.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
The Deny statement condition incorrectly uses StringNotEquals, which denies all instances except those with the Production tag.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. The Deny statement denies ec2:RunInstances, not ec2:StopInstances. The condition StringNotEquals applies only to RunInstances, so it does not affect stopping instances.
✗
The Deny statement includes ec2:StopInstances implicitly because stop is a termination action.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. The action ec2:StopInstances is not implicitly included in ec2:RunInstances. The Deny statement only covers launching instances, not stopping them.
✓
The Allow statement only grants ec2:DescribeInstances, not start/stop.
Why this is correct
Correct. The Allow statement only includes ec2:DescribeInstances. Since there is no explicit Allow for ec2:StopInstances, the action is implicitly denied, causing the failure to stop the instance.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
The policy does not prevent stopping instances with the Development tag; the failure must be caused by another policy or service control policy.
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. The policy itself denies ec2:StopInstances by omission (no Allow). The failure is directly due to this missing permission, not necessarily another policy or SCP.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates misread the Deny statement's action (ec2:RunInstances) and condition (StringNotEquals) as applying to stopping instances, when in fact it only affects launching instances, leading them to incorrectly select Option A or B without noticing the action mismatch.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
In AWS IAM, actions are explicitly allowed or denied; if no explicit allow exists for an action, the default is implicit deny. However, an explicit deny overrides any allow. Here, the Deny statement targets ec2:RunInstances with a condition that denies launching instances not tagged Production, but it does not affect ec2:StopInstances. For stopping an instance, the user needs an explicit allow for ec2:StopInstances; without it, the implicit deny applies, but that is not a policy failure—it's expected. The real issue is that the user cannot stop the instance despite having Describe permissions, indicating an external policy (like an SCP or a different IAM policy attached to the user or role) is explicitly denying ec2:StopInstances for Development-tagged instances.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A company's IT admin needs to give a contractor read-only access to production logs without sharing account credentials. Using role-based access control (RBAC) and temporary scoped permissions — not a permanent shared password — is the correct pattern. Questions like this test whether you can apply least-privilege access across cloud identity services.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Configuration Management and IaC — This question tests Configuration Management and IaC — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: The Allow statement only grants ec2:DescribeInstances, not start/stop. — The IAM policy in the exhibit only grants ec2:DescribeInstances and explicitly denies ec2:RunInstances with a condition. It does not include an Allow for ec2:StopInstances. By default, IAM denies any action that is not explicitly allowed. Therefore, the user lacks permission to stop instances, including the Development-tagged instance. Option C correctly identifies this as the reason for the failure. Option D is incorrect because the policy itself denies stop implicitly due to the missing Allow; it is not necessary to invoke another policy or SCP.
What should I do if I get this DOP-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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