Safeguard for Privileged Passwords Appliances can be clustered to ensure high availability. Clustering enables the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster. This reduces down time and data loss.
Another benefit of clustering is load distribution. Clustering in a managed network ensures the load is distributed to ensure minimal cluster traffic and to ensure appliances that are closest to the target asset are used to perform the task. The Appliance Administrator defines managed networks (network segments) to effectively manage assets, account, and service access requests in a clustered environment to distribute the task load.
A Safeguard for Privileged Passwords cluster consists of three or five appliances. An appliance can only belong to a single cluster. One appliance in the cluster is designated as the "primary". Non-primary appliances are referred to as "replicas". All vital data stored on the primary appliance is also stored on the replicas. In the event of a disaster, where the primary appliance is no longer functioning, you can promote a replica to be the new primary appliance. Network configuration is done on each unique appliance, whether it is the primary or a replica.
The replicas provide a read-only view of the security policy configuration. You cannot add, delete, or modify the objects or security policy configuration on a replica appliance. You can perform password change and check operations and make password release and session access requests. Users can log into replicas to request access, generate reports or audit the data. Also, passwords and sessions can be requested from any appliance in a Safeguard cluster.
Current supported cluster configurations follow.
Some maintenance tasks require that the cluster has consensus (quorum). Consensus means that the majority of the members (primary or replica appliances) are online and able to communicate. Valid states are: Online or ReplicaWithQuorum. For more information, see Appliance states.
Supported clusters have an odd number of appliances so the cluster has a consensus equal to or greater than 50% of the appliances are online and able to communicate.
If a cluster loses consensus (also known as a quorum failure), the following automatically happens:
When connectivity is restored between a majority of members in a cluster, consensus is automatically regained. If the consensus members include the primary appliance, it automatically converts to read-write mode and enables password check and change.
The following tools are available to perform health checks and diagnose the cluster and appliances.
You can shut down and restart an appliance.
You can enable Offline Workflow Mode either automatically or manually to force an appliance which no longer has quorum to process access requests using cached policy data in isolation from the remainder of the cluster. The appliance will be in Offline Workflow Mode.
If a primary is not communicating, perform a manual failover. If that is not possible, you can use a backup to restore an appliance.
If the cluster appliances are able to communicate, you can unjoin the replica then activate the primary so replicas can be joined.
If the appliance is offline or the cluster members are unable to communicate, you must use Cluster Reset to rebuild the cluster. If there are appliances which must be removed from the cluster but there is no quorum to safely unjoin, a cluster reset force-removes nodes from the cluster. For more information, see Resetting a cluster that has lost consensus.
Perform a factory reset to recover from major problems or to clear the data and configuration settings on a hardware appliance. All data and audit history is lost and the hardware appliance goes into maintenance mode.
You can perform a factory reset from:
Prior to the Appliance Administrator enrolling cluster members into a Safeguard for Privileged Passwords cluster, review the enrollment considerations which follow.
During an "enroll replica" operation, the replica appliance goes into Maintenance mode. The existing members of the cluster can still process access requests as long as the member has quorum. On the primary appliance, you will see an "enrolling" notice in the status bar of the cluster view, indicating that a cluster-wide operation is in progress. This cluster lock prevents you from doing additional maintenance activities.
Once the maintenance operation (enroll replica operation) is complete, the diagram in the cluster view (left pane) shows the link latency on the connector. The appliances in the cluster are unlocked and users can once again use the features available in Safeguard for Privileged Passwords.
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TIP: The Activity Center contains events for the start and the completion of the enrollment process. |
The primary appliance's objects and security policy configuration are replicated to all replica appliances in the cluster. Any objects (such as users, assets, and so on) or security policy configuration defined on the replica will be removed during enroll. Existing configuration data from the primary will be replicated to the replica during the enroll. Future configuration changes on the primary are replicated to all replicas.
To enroll a replica
Safeguard for Privileged Passwords connects to the replica and displays the login screen for the replica appliance.
In the Add Replica confirmation dialog, enter the words Add Replica and click OK to proceed with the operation.
Safeguard for Privileged Passwords displays (synchronizing icon) and
(lock icon) next to the appliance it is enrolling and puts the replica appliance in Maintenance mode while it is enrolling into the cluster.
On all of the appliances in the cluster, you will see an "enrolling" banner at the top of the cluster view, indicating that a cluster-wide operation is in progress and all appliances in the cluster are locked down.
Once the maintenance operation (enroll replica operation) is complete, the diagram in the cluster view (left pane) shows the link latency on the connector. The appliances in the cluster are unlocked and users can once again make access requests.
Log into the replica appliance as the Appliance Administrator.
Notice that the appliance has a state of Replica (meaning it is in a Read-Only mode); and contains the objects and security policy configuration defined on the primary appliance.
Safeguard for Privileged Passwords allows the Appliance Administrator to unjoin replica appliances from a cluster. Prior to unjoining a replica from a Safeguard for Privileged Passwords cluster, review the unjoin considerations which follow.
You can only unjoin replica appliances from a cluster.
When you unjoin a replica appliance from a cluster, the appliance is removed from the cluster as a stand-alone appliance that retains all of the data and security policy configuration information it contained prior to being unjoined. After the replica is unjoined, the appliance is placed in a Read-only mode with the functionality identified in Read-only mode functionality. You can activate an appliance in Read-only mode so you can add, delete and modify data, apply access request workflow, and so on. For more information, see Activating a read-only appliance.
To unjoin a replica from a cluster
In the Unjoin confirmation dialog, enter the word Unjoin and click OK to proceed.
Safeguard for Privileged Passwords displays (synchronizing icon) and
(lock icon) next to the appliance it is unjoining and puts the replica appliance in Maintenance mode while it is unjoining from the cluster.
Once the operation has completed, the replica appliance no longer appears in the cluster view (left pane).
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NOTE: If you log into the replica appliance using the desktop client while Safeguard for Privileged Passwords is processing an unjoin operation, you will see the Maintenance mode screen. At the end of the Maintenance mode, you will see a Restart Desktop Client button indicating that the unjoin operation completed successfully. |
When a node is selected in the Cluster view (left pane) of the Cluster settings page, the appliance details and cluster health view (right pane) displays details about the selected appliance. From this pane you can run the following maintenance and diagnostic tasks against the selected appliance.
Activate: Click
Activate to activate a Read-only appliance so it can add, modify and delete data. For more information, see Activating a read-only appliance.
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CAUTION: Activating an appliance that is in Read-Only mode will take it out of the Read-only state and enable password check and change for managed accounts. Ensure that no other Safeguard for Privileged Passwords Appliance is actively monitoring these accounts, otherwise access to managed accounts could be lost. |
To fix more serious issues with a cluster, you can perform additional operations depending on the state of the cluster members. Some such operations include:
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