It is important for you to perform systematic backups of the following directories on all policy servers:
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/var/opt/quest/qpm4u which contains:
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/etc/opt/quest/qpm4u which contains:
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Settings File
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Production Policy
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/opt/quest/qpm4u/.license* which contains:
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/opt/quest/qpm4u/license* which contains:
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/opt/quest/qpm4u/install which contains:
When recovering from a failure, keep the same hostname and IP address.
The Safeguard for Sudo security system consists of one or more centralized policy servers and one or more remote clients. A user wishing to run a command secured by Safeguard for Sudo makes a request to their client. The request is then propagated to the policy server which consults a security policy to determine whether to allow or disallow the command. A typical Safeguard for Sudo installation has several policy servers to provide adequate fail-over and load-balancing coverage.
The Safeguard for Sudo policy servers are capable of recording all the activity which passes through them. The power to accurately log root, and other account activities in a safe environment allows you to implement a secure system administration regime with an indelible audit trail. You always know exactly what is happening in root, as well as who did it, when it happened, and where.
The data created by the Safeguard for Sudo policy servers is stored in a log file called an event log. An entry in the event log is made every time a policy server is used to run a command.
The security policy lies at the heart of Safeguard for Sudo. Safeguard for Sudo guards access to privileged functions on your systems according to rules specified in the security policy. It stipulates which users may access which commands with escalated privileges.
Safeguard for Sudo supports two security policy types (or modes):
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sudo policy type: Safeguard for Sudo uses a standard sudoers file as its security policy; that is, the sudo policy is defined by the sudoers file which contains a list of rules that control the behavior of sudo. The sudo command allows users to get elevated access to commands even if they do not have root access.
Safeguard uses the sudo policy type by default. The sudo policy type is only supported with the One Identity Safeguard for Sudo product.
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pmpolicy type: Privilege Manager for Unix uses an advanced security policy which employs a high-level scripting language to specify access to commands based on a wide variety of constraints. The Privilege Manager for Unix policy is defined in pm.conf, the default policy configuration file which contains statements and declarations in a language specifically designed to express policies concerning the use of root and other controlled accounts.
Beginning with release 7.0, both Privilege Manager for Unix and Safeguard for Sudo support the pmpolicy type.
By default, the policy server configuration tool (pmsrvconfig) uses the sudo policy type on new installations; if you want to run Safeguard for Sudo using the pmpolicy type you must specify that explicitly when using the policy server configuration script.
The pmsrvconfig program is used by both Privilege Manager for Unix and Safeguard for Sudo. Run pmsrvconfig -m sudo or pmsrvconfig -m pmpolicy to specify the policy type. For more information about the pmsrvconfig command options, see pmsrvconfig.
The default behavior for setting up the initial policy depends on which type of policy you are using. If you configure Safeguard for Sudo using the default sudo policy type, pmsrvconfig uses a copy of the /etc/sudoers file as its initial security policy if the file exists, otherwise it creates a generic sudoers file.
When you join a Sudo Plugin to a policy server, Safeguard for Sudo adds the following lines to the current local sudoers file, generally found in /etc/sudoers.
##
## WARNING: Sudoers rules are being managed by Safeguard for Sudo
## WARNING: Do not edit this file, it is no longer used.
##
## Run "/opt/quest/sbin/pmpolicy edit" to edit the actual sudoers rules.
##
When you unjoin the Sudo Plugin, Safeguard for Sudo removes those lines from the local sudoers file.
Use the pmsrvconfig -f <path> command to override the default and import the initial security policy from the specified location. When using the sudo policy type, you can only use the -f option to import a file; you can not import a directory.
Safeguard for Sudo uses a version control system to manage and maintain the security policy. This allows auditors and system administrators to track changes that have been made to the policy and also allows a single policy to be shared and distributed among several policy servers. The "master" copy of the security policy and all version information is kept in a repository on the primary policy server.
You manage the security policy using the pmpolicy command and a number of pmpolicy subcommands. It is important that you only make changes to the policy using the pmpolicy command. Using pmpolicy ensures that the policy is updated in the repository and across all policy servers in the policy group. You can run the pmpolicy command from any policy server in the policy group.
Do not edit the security policy on a policy server directly. Changes made using visudo will eventually be overwritten by the version control system.
The primary policy server uses a local service account, pmpolicy, to own and manage the security policy repository. The pmpolicy service account is set when you configure the primary policy server. At that time you assign the pmpolicy service account a password and set its home directory to /var/opt/quest/qpm4u/pmpolicy. This password is also called the "Join" password because you use it when you add secondary policy servers or join remote hosts to this policy group.
You can manually create the pmpolicy user prior to running the pmsrvconfig script, but if the user account does not exist, the script creates the user and asks you for a password.
When you run the pmsrvconfig command, it attempts to initialize the security policy by reusing an existing policy file on this host. If a security policy does not exist, it generates a default policy.
To configure a Safeguard for Sudo policy server, you must specify the sudo policy type.
To specify the security policy type
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To specify the sudo policy type, run:
# pmsrvconfig -m sudo
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To specify the pmpolicy type, run:
# pmsrvconfig -m pmpolicy
For more information about pmpolicy language, see Privilege Manager for Unix Administration Guide.
Related Topics
pmsrvconfig
