On this weblog put up, you’ll discover ways to report SSH periods on a Pink Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VSI in a personal VPC community utilizing in-built packages. The VPC non-public community is provisioned by way of 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 leap server are each safety mechanisms utilized in community and server environments to manage and improve safety when connecting to distant programs. 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 move the request to the downstream machine. Bastion host and leap 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 important for a security-sensitive system.
What’s a personal VPC community?
A virtual private cloud is totally non-public if there isn’t any 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 hook up 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 assets by way of safe, encrypted connections.
The client-to-site VPN is very accessible, with two VPN servers which are created in two totally different availability zones in the identical area. The bastions are extremely accessible as nicely.
Conditions
Provision the non-public VPC community utilizing Terraform
- After getting the IBM Cloud Secrets Manager 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 assets (e.g., subnets, bastion hosts (VSIs), VPN, and so on.):
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform applyConnect with client-to-site VPN
- As soon as the VPC assets are efficiently provisioned, it’s essential to obtain the VPN shopper profile by navigating to VPN servers page on IBM Cloud.
- Click on the Consumer-to-site servers tab after which on the identify of the VPN:
- Obtain the profile from the Shoppers tab.
- The VPN provisioned by way of Terraform makes use of certificates. Comply with the instructions here to hook up with the OpenVPN Consumer.
- It is 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 way of a bastion host. You may be utilizing the non-public IP handle of the bastion in Zone 1:
ssh -J root@10.10.0.13 root@10.10.128.13- Keep in mind, you ought to be related to the client-to-site VPN to entry the RHEL VSI by way of the bastion host.
- After SSH, It is best to see directions to allow SSH session recording utilizing the TLOG bundle 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:
tlogSSSDcockpit-session-recording
The packages might be put in by way of Ansible automation on all of the VSIs—each bastion hosts and RHEL VSI.
- Transfer to the Ansible folder:
cd ansible- Create
hosts.inifrom 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-cacheYou’ll be able to see in Determine 1 that after you SSH into the RHEL machine, you will notice a word saying: ATTENTION! Your session is being recorded!
Test the session recordings, logs and reviews
When you carefully observe the messages post-SSH, you will notice a URL to the net console that may be accessed utilizing the machine identify 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 most recent 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 identify, it’s essential to arrange a personal DNS (out of scope for this text). You want a root password to entry the net console:
- Navigate to Session Recording on the left-hand facet to see the checklist of session recordings. Together with session recordings, you’ll be able to verify the logs, diagnostic reviews, and so on.:
Really helpful studying
Conclusion
This text lined why session recording is required in bastion hosts for auditing and compliance and the way session recording will be arrange with the built-in RHEL packages utilizing Ansible Automation.
Whereas designing a secured digital non-public cloud community, you realized the most effective practices in architecting a VPC non-public community. We additionally lined 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.
Learn more about IBM Cloud VPC
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