It is important for you to perform systematic backups of the following directories on all policy servers:
When recovering from a failure, keep the same hostname and IP address.
The Privilege Manager for Unix 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 Privilege Manager for Unix 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 Privilege Manager for Unix installation has several policy servers to provide adequate fail-over and load-balancing coverage.
The Privilege Manager for Unix 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 Privilege Manager for Unix 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 Privilege Manager for Unix. Privilege Manager for Unix 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.
Privilege Manager for Unix supports two security policy types (or modes):
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.
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.
Management Console for Unix gives you the ability to centrally manage policy located on the primary policy server. You view and edit both pmpolicy and sudo policy from the Policy tab on the mangement console.
By default, the policy server configuration tool (pmsrvconfig) uses the sudo policy type on new installations; if you want to run Privilege Manager for Unix 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. See pmsrvconfig for more information about the pmsrvconfig command options.
When you join a Sudo Plugin to a policy server, Privilege Manager for Unix 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, Privilege Manager for Unix removes those lines from the local sudoers file.
If you configure Privilege Manager for Unix using the pmpolicy type, pmsrvconfig creates a profile-based policy. This security policy simplifies setup and maintenance through use of easy-to-manage profile templates. See pmpolicy type policy for more information about profile-based policy.
Use the pmsrvconfig -f <path> command to override the default and import the initial security policy from the specified location.
Privilege Manager for Unix 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.
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 Privilege Manager for Unix policy server, you must specify the pmpolicy type.
To specify the security policy type
# pmsrvconfig -m pmpolicy
For more information about pmpolicy language, see Privilege Manager for Unix Administration Guide.
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