One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Sessions 6.10.0 - Administration Guide

Joining to a cluster

To join additional Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) nodes to a cluster, generate a join token on the node that you want to add to the cluster, and then use that token on the Central management node to finish adding the node to the cluster.

To join additional nodes to a cluster by generating and using join tokens

1. Navigate to Basic Settings > Cluster management. The main Cluster management window appears, allowing you to either join the node to an existing cluster, or create a new one.

   Figure 116: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Join and create cluster options

   

2. Click Join to cluster to open the cluster join window.

   Figure 117: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Join to cluster window

   

3. On the Join to cluster dialog, in the Central node address field, enter the IP address of the Central management node of the cluster you want to join.

   TIP: You can check the IP address on the Basic Settings > Cluster management screen of the Central management node.

4. Click Join. A confirmation dialog appears. Click Join to cluster again in the dialog to proceed.

   NOTE: Once you click Join to cluster, you cannot undo the join process, and you will not be able to promote the node you are currently configuring to a Central management role later. However, you will still be able to change the IP address of the Central management node in the Central Node Address field, if needed.

5. A window with a join token appears.

   Figure 118: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Join token used to join a cluster

   

   Click Copy token to copy the join token to the clipboard.

6. On the Central management node of the cluster you want to join, navigate to Basic Settings > Cluster management, and click Add new node.

   Figure 119: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Cluster management dialog on the Central management node

   

7. The Add new node dialog appears.

   Figure 120: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Add new node dialog

   

   Paste the token in the Join Token field, then click Add node.

Once the node joined the cluster, it is displayed in the list of nodes on the Basic Settings > Cluster management window of the Central management node.

At the same time, on the node that you joined to the cluster, the Basic Settings > Cluster management page shows the IP address of the Central management node of the cluster.

Figure 122: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Join status indicated on the node that newly joined to the cluster

If you want to centrally manage the configuration of the node(s) you have joined to the cluster, assign the Managed host role to them. For details, see Assigning roles to nodes in your cluster.

Assigning roles to nodes in your cluster

By default, nodes do not have any roles assigned to them. The only exception is the Central management node, which you specifically promoted to fulfill that role. To assign a role to a node in the cluster, complete the following steps.

To assign roles to nodes in your cluster

1. On the web interface of your Central management node, navigate to Basic Settings > Cluster management. This page displays all nodes in the cluster.

2. Click at the right side of the row of the node that node that you want to update. The node row is expanded, showing the node address and the available roles.

3. Select the role that you want to assign to the node. For details on what each role means, see Cluster roles.

   Caution: Configuration options that you set on a node before joining it to the cluster will be overwritten by the configuration of the Central management node. For example, policies and protocol-specific settings will be overwritten once you assign the Managed host role to the node. Managed host roles periodically fetch the configuration of the Central management node and merge it into their own. This is called configuration synchronization. To avoid the loss of policies and settings that are specific to your Managed host node, use a configuration synchronization plugin. Such plugins enable you to limit the scope of configuration synchronization. For more information, see Configuration synchronization across nodes in a cluster.

   NOTE: When assigning search roles, consider the following:

   • Ensure that each node has a search role.
   • Ensure that each node has only one search role.
   • You must assign the Search master role before you can assign Search minion roles.

   Figure 123: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Assigning the Search local role to the selected node

   

4. Click Update to apply the selected roles. The role you assigned (in this case, the Search local role) is then displayed next to the node, under the Roles column.

   Figure 124: Basic Settings > Cluster management — Search local role is assigned to node

   

   You can assign roles to your nodes through the REST API, too. For details, see "Assign a role to a node" in the REST API Reference Guide.

Configuration synchronization across nodes in a cluster

Nodes fetch their configuration from the Central management node, and merge it into their own configuration. Depending on their role, nodes may merge the whole configuration into their own (Managed host nodes), or only the cluster-specific parts (nodes with no roles assigned). Whenever a configuration change is made on the Central management node and the change is committed, it is synchronized to all nodes in the cluster as soon as the nodes fetch the latest configuration from the Central management node.

Configuration synchronization in Safeguard for Privileged Sessions (SPS) has some implications for the SSH keys (if any) that have been recorded on your nodes before they were joined to the cluster. For details, see Configuration synchronization and SSH keys.

In some cases, you may want to keep certain parts of the configuration on your nodes outside the scope of configuration synchronization. In that case, use a configuration synchronization plugin. For more information, see Using a configuration synchronization plugin.

The following configuration settings are never overwritten by configuration synchronization, even when not using a configuration synchronization plugin:

• Settings related to networking (Basic Settings > Network).
• Settings related to local services (Basic Settings > Local Services).
• Settings related to the management of SPS (Basic Settings > Management).
• Settings related to the license of SPS (Basic Settings > System > License).

Configuration synchronization and SSH keys

The only SSH keys present on Managed host nodes will always be the ones that have been recorded by the Central management node. This is because the SSH keys stored on the Central management node get synced to the Managed host nodes during configuration synchronization. This means that the SSH keys recorded on the Managed host nodes before they were joined to the cluster are overwritten by the keys stored on the Central management node.

The Central management node records new SSH keys in the following cases:

• The Central management node is configured to Accept key for the first time, and a new key is automatically recorded when the Central management node interacts with a server for the first time.
• A new key is recorded on the Central management node on the SSH Control > Server Host Keys page and this change is committed.

These are the keys that get synced to your Managed host nodes.