Getting Started

Getting Started with configuring connections on your PAM Record types

Overview

In this guide, you will learn how to setup connections for all the supported protocols on your PAM Record types in your Keeper Vault.

An active license is required in order to use the features available with KeeperPAM. This license is available for both business and enterprise customers.

Prerequisites

Prior to configuring Connections, make sure to have the following:

Connection Enforcement Policies

The following Enforcement Policies affect user's permissions to use Connections and need to be enabled.

Enforcement policies for KeeperPAM are managed in the Keeper Admin Console under Admin > Roles > Enforcement Policies > Privileged Access Manager.

KeeperPAM Enforcement Policies
Enforcement Policy
Commander Enforcement Policy
Definition

Can configure connection settings

ALLOW_CONFIGURE_PAM_CLOUD_CONNECTION_SETTINGS

Allow users to configure Tunnel settings on PAM Machine, PAM Directory, PAM Database and PAM Configuration Records Types

Can start connections

ALLOW_LAUNCH_PAM_ON_CLOUD_CONNECTION

Allow users to start tunnels on PAM Machine, PAM Directory and PAM Database Record Types

Can view recordings

ALLOW_VIEW_KCM_RECORDINGS

Allow users to view session Recordings.

Tunnels can also be enabled on the Keeper Commander CLI using the enterprise-role command:

enterprise-role "My Role" --enforcement "ALLOW_CONFIGURE_PAM_CLOUD_CONNECTION_SETTINGS":true
enterprise-role "My Role" --enforcement "ALLOW_LAUNCH_PAM_ON_CLOUD_CONNECTION":true
enterprise-role "My Role" --enforcement "ALLOW_VIEW_KCM_RECORDINGS":true

Enforcement Policy Use Cases

If a user should only have access to launching connections and not configuring connections, then only "Can start connections" policy should be enabled for the user.

In addition to launching connections, If a user should also have access to configure connections, then "Can configure connections settings" and "Can start connections" should be enabled for the user.

Session Recordings

Launched connections can also be recorded. These recordings are available on the PAM Machine, PAM Database, or PAM Directory record types and can be played back on your Vault. For more details on session recording and playback, visit this page.

Installing the Keeper Gateway

The Keeper Gateway is a hosted agentless service that is installed on the customer's network to enabled zero-trust access to target infrastructure. Typically this service is installed on a Linux or Docker environment in each of the networks that requires access.

For more details on installing and setting up your gateway, visit this page.

PAM Configuration

The PAM Configuration contains essential information of your target infrastructure, settings and Keeper Gateway. Setting up a PAM Configuration for your infrastructure is required. For more information on creating and configuring the PAM Configuration, visit this page.

PAM Machine, PAM Database and PAM Directory

A Keeper Connection is a secure, encrypted interactive session established between your vault client to the target endpoint. The target endpoint needs to be defined on one of the following PAM Record types:

PAM Record Type
Target Endpoint type

Windows/MacOS/Linux Machines, EC2 Instances, Azure VMs

MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, MariaDB, Oracle

Active Directory, OpenLDAP

Web-based applications

Depending on your target endpoint, visit the corresponding PAM Record Type page for more information on setup.

Supported Connection Protocols

The following table lists all the supported connection protocol that can be configured in your Keeper Vault. Visit the associated link for each protocol for more details on configuration.

Protocol
PAM Record Type
Definition

PAM Machine

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Machine Record with the SSH connection protocol

PAM Machine

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Machine Record with the RDP connection protocol

PAM Browser

Connecting to the URL defined in the PAM Browser Record with the Remote Browser Isolation (http/https) protocol

PAM Database

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Database Record with the MySQL connection protocol

PAM Database

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Database Record with the SQL Server connection protocol

PAM Database

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Database Record with the PostgreSQL connection protocol

PAM Machine

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Machine Record with the VNC connection protocol

PAM Machine

Connecting to the target defined on the PAM Machine Record with the Telnet connection protocol

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