The Channel Policy lists the channels (for example, terminal session and SCP in SSH, or Drawing and Clipboard in RDP) that can be used in the connection, and also determines if the channel is audited or not. The Channel Policy can also restrict access to each channel based on the IP address of the client or the server, a user list, user group, or a time policy. For example, all clients may access the servers defined in a connection via SSH terminal, but the channel policy may restrict SCP access only to a single client. The policies set in the Channel Policy are checked when the user attempts to open a particular channel type in the connection.

Figure 111: Traffic Controls > Protocol name > Channel Policies — Configuring channel policies

To create a new channel policy or edit an existing one

  1. Channel policies are configured individually for every protocol. Navigate to the Channel Policies tab of the respective protocol (for example, Traffic Controls > SSH > Channel Policies) and click to create a new channel policy. Enter a name for the policy (for example, shell_and_backup).

  2. Click to add a new channel.

  3. Select the channel to be enabled in the connection from the Type field. All restrictions set in the following steps will be effective on this channel type. The available channels are different for every protocol. For their descriptions, see the following sections:

  4. To restrict the availability of the channel only to certain clients, click in the From field and enter the IP address of the client allowed to use this type of the channel. Repeat this step until all required client IP addresses are listed.

    Alternatively, you can also enter a hostname instead. One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) saves the hostname and resolves it when opening channels, therefore SPS can trace dynamic IP addresses.

    NOTE: Note the following limitations:

    • The Domain Name Servers you set must be able to resolve the hostnames you enter into the From and Targetclients and servers fields, otherwise this function (and, therefore, the sessions using this Channel Policy) will not work.

    • SPS Channel Policies support wildcard characters in the *.example.com format. If the channel opening request contains an IP address, SPS uses a reverse lookup method to resolve this IP address into a hostname for a match.

    • SPS uses the Domain Name Servers set in the Basic Settings > Network > Naming > Primary DNS server and Secondary DNS server fields/api/configuration/network/dns endpoint to resolve the hostnames.

  5. To restrict the availability of the channel only to certain servers, click in the Target field and enter the IP address of the server allowed to use this type of the channel. Repeat this step until all required server IP addresses are listed.

    NOTE: Use the real IP address of the server, which may be different from the one addressed by the clients, specified in the Target field of the connection policy.

    Alternatively, you can also enter a hostname instead. One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) saves the hostname and resolves it when opening channels, therefore SPS can trace dynamic IP addresses.

    NOTE: Note the following limitations:

    • The Domain Name Servers you set must be able to resolve the hostnames you enter into the From and Targetclients and servers fields, otherwise this function (and, therefore, the sessions using this Channel Policy) will not work.

    • SPS Channel Policies support wildcard characters in the *.example.com format. If the channel opening request contains an IP address, SPS uses a reverse lookup method to resolve this IP address into a hostname for a match.

    • SPS uses the Domain Name Servers set in the Basic Settings > Network > Naming > Primary DNS server and Secondary DNS server fields/api/configuration/network/dns endpoint to resolve the hostnames.

    Alternatively, you can configure a custom DNS server to be used for target selection custom_dns field of the Connection Policy. Select Enable Custom DNS server under the Target section of your connection policies (set under Traffic Controls > Protocol name > Connections) and enter the IP address of the custom DNS server.

  6. To restrict the availability of the channel only to certain users, click in the Remote Group field and enter the name of the user group allowed to use this type of the channel. Repeat this step until all permitted groups are listed.

    		 Caution:

    Adding more than approximately 1000 remote groups to a channel policy may cause configuration, performance, and authentication issues when connecting to LDAP servers.

    To restrict the availability of the channel when using gateway authentication, click in the Gateway Group field and enter the name of the user group allowed to use this type of the channel. Repeat this step until all permitted groups are listed.

    You may list local user lists as defined in Creating and editing user lists, or LDAP groups (for details on accessing LDAP servers from SPS, see Authenticating users to an LDAP server). Note the following behavior of SPS:

    • If you list multiple groups, members of any of the groups can access the channel.

      NOTE: >When listing both a whitelist and blacklist in the Remote Group section and a username appears on both lists, the user will be able to access the channel.

    • If you do not list any groups, anyone can access the channel.

      NOTE: When the channel opens, there are certain cases when the remote group is not known yet. For example, in case of an RDP or ICA login screen, the drawing channel has to be opened first to properly display the logon screen. Only those channel rules will apply, where the Remote group field is empty. In case of network level authentication, all required information is present already so this limitation does not apply.

    • If a local user list and an LDAP group has the same name and the LDAP server is configured in the connection that uses this channel policy, both the members of the LDAP group and the members of the local user list can access the channel.

    NOTE: User lists and LDAP support is currently available only for the SSH and RDP protocols. For other protocols, see Configuring gateway authentication.

  7. Select a time policy to narrow the availability of the channel. If the time policy of the channel policy is set to 7x24, the channel is always available. For details, see Configuring time policies.

  8. Some channel types require additional parameters, for example port forwarding in SSH needs the IP addresses and ports of the source and destination machines. Click in the Details field and enter the required parameters. For a list of parameters used by the different channels, see Supported SSH channel types and Supported RDP channel types.

  9. Select the Record audit trail option to record the activities of the channel into audit trails. Typically large file-transfers (for example system backups, SFTP channels) are not audited because they result in very large audit trails. Check regularly the free hard disk space available on SPS if you do audit such channels. You can also receive alerts about disk space fill-up if you set these. For details, see Preventing disk space fill-up and System related traps.

  10. Select the 4 eyes option to require four-eyes authorization to access the channel. For details, see Configuring four-eyes authorization.

  11. Repeat Steps 2-10 to add other channels to the policy.

    NOTE: The order of the rules matters. The first matching rule will be applied to the connection. Also, note that you can add the same channel type more than once, to fine-tune the policy.

  12. Click to save the list.