On this weblog submit, you’ll discover ways to file SSH periods on a Pink Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VSI in a non-public VPC community utilizing in-built packages. The VPC non-public community is provisioned by Terraform and the RHEL packages are put in utilizing Ansible automation. Moreover, you’ll discover ways to arrange a extremely accessible bastion host.
What’s session recording and why is it required?
A bastion host and a bounce server are each safety mechanisms utilized in community and server environments to regulate and improve safety when connecting to distant methods. They serve comparable functions however have some variations of their implementation and use circumstances. The bastion host is positioned in entrance of the non-public community to take SSH requests from public site visitors and cross the request to the downstream machine. Bastion host and bounce servers are weak to intrusion as a result of they’re uncovered to public site visitors.
Session recording helps an administrator of a system to audit consumer SSH periods and ensure they adjust to regulatory necessities. Within the occasion of a safety breach, the administrator will wish to audit and analyze the consumer periods. That is crucial for a security-sensitive system.
What’s a non-public VPC community?
A digital non-public cloud is totally non-public if there is no such thing as a public ingress or outgress community site visitors. In easy technical phrases, it’s non-public if there aren’t any public gateways on the subnets (non-public subnets) and no floating IPs on the Digital Server Cases (VSIs).
How do I connect with the non-public VPC community?
Consumer-to-site VPN for VPC is among the two VPN choices accessible on IBM Cloud, and it permits customers to hook up with IBM Cloud sources by safe, encrypted connections.
The client-to-site VPN is extremely accessible, with two VPN servers which might be created in two totally different availability zones in the identical area. The bastions are extremely accessible as properly.
Stipulations
Provision the non-public VPC community utilizing Terraform
After you have the IBM Cloud Secrets and techniques Supervisor secret with the certificates, launch your terminal and set the next Terraform variables:
export TF_VAR_ibmcloud_api_key=<IBM_CLOUD_API_KEY>
export TF_VAR_secrets_manager_certificate_crn=<SECRET_CRN>
git clone https://github.com/VidyasagarMSC/private-vpc-network
cd terraform
Run the Terraform instructions to provision the VPC sources (e.g., subnets, bastion hosts (VSIs), VPN, and so on.):
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply
Hook up with client-to-site VPN
As soon as the VPC sources are efficiently provisioned, it’s essential to obtain the VPN shopper profile by navigating to VPN servers web page on IBM Cloud.
Click on the Consumer-to-site servers tab after which on the title of the VPN:
Obtain the profile from the Purchasers tab.
The VPN provisioned by Terraform makes use of certificates. Comply with the directions right here to hook up with the OpenVPN Consumer.
It’s best to see the profitable connection in your OpenVPN Consumer:
Confirm the SSH connection
On a terminal, add the SSH non-public key to the SSH agent with the next command:
ssh-add <LOCATION_OF_PRIVATE_SSH_KEY>
Instance: ssh-add ~/.ssh/<NAME_OF_THE_PRIVATE_KEY>
Run the next command to SSH into the RHEL VSI by a bastion host. You may be utilizing the non-public IP deal with of the bastion in Zone 1:
ssh -J root@10.10.0.13 root@10.10.128.13
Keep in mind, try to be linked to the client-to-site VPN to entry the RHEL VSI by the bastion host.
After SSH, It’s best to see directions to allow SSH session recording utilizing the TLOG package deal on RHEL.
Deploy session recording utilizing Ansible
To deploy the session recording resolution, it’s essential to have the next packages put in on the RHEL VSI:
tlog
SSSD
cockpit-session-recording
The packages will likely be put in by Ansible automation on all of the VSIs—each bastion hosts and RHEL VSI.
Transfer to the Ansible folder:
cd ansible
Create hosts.ini from the template file:
cp hosts_template.ini hosts.ini
Run the Ansible playbook to put in the packages from an IBM Cloud non-public mirror/repository:
ansible-playbook main_playbook.yml -i hosts.ini –flush-cache
You possibly can see in Determine 1 that after you SSH into the RHEL machine, you will note a observe saying: ATTENTION! Your session is being recorded!
Examine the session recordings, logs and reviews
For those who intently observe the messages post-SSH, you will note a URL to the online console that may be accessed utilizing the machine title or non-public IP over port 9090. To permit site visitors on port 9090, within the Terraform code, change the worth of allow_port_9090 variable to true and run terraform apply. The newest terraform apply will add ACL and safety group guidelines to permit site visitors on port 9090.
Now, open a browser and navigate to http://10.10.128.13:9090. To entry utilizing the VSI title, it’s essential to arrange a non-public DNS (out of scope for this text). You want a root password to entry the online console:
Navigate to Session Recording on the left-hand facet to see the checklist of session recordings. Together with session recordings, you possibly can verify the logs, diagnostic reviews, and so on.:
Beneficial studying
Conclusion
This text coated why session recording is required in bastion hosts for auditing and compliance and the way session recording may be arrange with the built-in RHEL packages utilizing Ansible Automation.
Whereas designing a secured digital non-public cloud community, you discovered the perfect practices in architecting a VPC non-public community. We additionally coated the necessity to construct extremely accessible VPN servers and bastion hosts. With the provisioning of cloud infrastructure utilizing Terraform and Ansible for session recording, you bought hands-on expertise.
Study extra about IBM Cloud VPC
When you have any queries, be at liberty to succeed in out to me on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
