Overview

In Keeper, the PAM Configuration contains essential information of your target infrastructure, settings and associated Keeper Gateway. We recommend setting up one PAM Configuration for each Gateway and network being managed.

Creating PAM Configuration

To create a new PAM Configuration:

• Login to the Keeper Vault

• Select Secrets Manager and the "PAM Configurations" tab

• Click on "New Configuration"

PAM Configuration Fields

When setting up the PAM Configuration, you have the option of choosing one of the following environments:

• Local Network

• AWS

• Azure

• Domain Controller

The following tables provides more details on each configurable fields in the PAM Configuration record regardless of the environment you choose:

The following tables provides more details on each configurable fields in the PAM Network Configuration record based on the environment you chose:

Local Network Environment

AWS Environment

• See additional information on AWS Environment Setup

Azure Environment

• See additional information on Azure Environment Setup

Domain Controller Environment

This PAM Configuration type is not yet available, it will be launched in January 2025.

PAM Features on PAM Configuration

The "PAM Features Allowed" and "Session Recording Types Allowed" sections in the PAM Configuration allow owners to enable or disable KeeperPAM features for resources managed through the PAM configuration:

AWS Environment Overview

Resources in your AWS environment can be managed by a Keeper Gateway using EC2 instance role policy or using a specified Access Key ID / Secret Access Key configured in the PAM Configuration record.

The role policy must be configured appropriately to enable access to the target AWS resources:

• EC2 Role Policy

• IAM User Policy

The following diagram shows the AWS environment hierarchy:

EC2 IAM Role Policy

To create a EC2 IAM policy which supports PAM features such as password rotation and discovery, a role with the appropriate policy settings should be configured then attached to the EC2 instance running the Keeper Gateway.

For KeeperPAM to have the authority to rotate IAM users and RDS databases, the following inline role policy should be modified to meet your needs and ensure least privilege.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances",
                "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
                "ds:DescribeDirectories",
                "iam:ListUsers",
                "iam:GetUser",
                "iam:ListAccessKeys",
                "iam:UpdateLoginProfile",
                "rds:ModifyDBInstance",
                "ds:ResetUserPassword",
                "ds:DescribeLDAPSSettings",
                "ds:DescribeDomainControllers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

To ensure least privilege, the JSON policy should be modified based on which target resources that KeeperPAM will be managing through the "Action" and "Resource" attributes.

Follow these steps to create a new role and apply the policy:

1. Create role with JSON specified above, or click on IAM > Roles > Create Role > Select "AWS Service" with "EC2 use case".

2. Attach the policy JSON to the role.

3. From EC2 > Instances, select the instance with the gateway and go to Actions > Security > Modify IAM Role > Select your new role.

Minimum AWS Policy to Manage IAM users

IAM User Policy

Using EC2 instance role policy is preferred, however the AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key can be directly set in the PAM Configuration. The IAM Admin account needs to be created with the appropriate policy settings configured to access the target resource in AWS.

An sample policy is below.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "iam:SimulatePrincipalPolicy",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances",
                "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
                "ds:DescribeDirectories",
                "iam:ListUsers",
                "iam:GetUser",
                "iam:ListAccessKeys",
                "iam:UpdateLoginProfile",
                "rds:ModifyDBInstance",
                "ds:ResetUserPassword",
                "ds:DescribeLDAPSSettings",
                "ds:DescribeDomainControllers"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

To ensure least privilege, the JSON policy should be modified based on which target resources that KeeperPAM will be managing through the "Action" and "Resource" attributes.

The steps to create the access keys is below:

1. Create a new IAM user or select an existing user

2. Attach the policy to the user

3. Open the IAM user > Security credentials > Create access key

4. Select "Application running outside AWS"

5. Save the provided Access Key ID / Secret Access Key into the PAM Configuration

In addition to these policies, we recommend protecting the Gateway Configuration secrets using the AWS KMS.

Azure Environment Overview

In order to set up your Azure environment, the following steps must be taken:

• Create an Azure application in the default Azure Active Directory.

• Get values for the Keeper PAM Configuration from this new application.

• Grant permissions to the application to access the Azure Active Directory.

• Create a custom role to allow the application to access/perform actions on various Azure resources.

Create an Azure App Registration

Go to the Azure portal > Home and click on Microsoft Entra ID on the left side vertical menu. Select App Registrations, and then New Registration. Give the new application a name and select Single tenant. Then click the Register button at the bottom.

In the Overview of the application, the Application (client) ID UUID is shown. This is the Client Id field of the Keeper PAM Configuration record. The Directory (tenant) ID is also shown. This is the Tenant Id field of the Keeper PAM Configuration record. Save these values for later.

Next, go to Home > General > Subscriptions and get your subscription ID. Copy the subscription ID into the Keeper PAM Configuration "Subscription ID" field. For more information on how to get your subscription ID, visit this page.

Next, click on the Add a certification or secret for Client credentials. On the next page, click on New client secret, give the client secret a Description, and select a desired Expires date, and click Add.

The page will refresh showing the secret Value. Copy the Value (not Secret ID) into the Keeper PAM Configuration "Client Secret" field. Save this value for later.

At this point, all the required the PAM Configuration fields should be filled in. You also have an Azure application that cannot do anything yet.

Assign Roles and Administrators

In order for the Azure tenant service principal/application to rotate Azure Active Directory users or Azure Active Directory Domain Service users, the application must be a assigned to an Administrative role.

From the Azure portal go to Home > Azure Active Directory > Roles and administrators, and click on the Administrative role to use (such as Privileged Authentication Administrator). The correct role depends on what privileges are needed for your use case. Custom roles can be used.

• Global Administrator - It is not recommended to use a Global Administrator on a service principal. However, it will allow both administrator and user passwords to be rotated.

• Privileged Authentication Administrator - Can change the password for any user, including a Global Administrator user.

• Authentication Administrator - Can change the password for any user, except a Global Administrator user.

To add the application, click Add assignments and Search for the service principal/application that was created, click it, and then Add.

Assign Azure Role

Roles need to be attached to the Azure Application (also called a Service Principle here) in order to rotate passwords of target resources. This is done in the Subscription section of the Azure portal.

Go to the Azure portal > Home > Subscriptions then select your subscription. Click on Access control (IAM), and then Roles.

Click Add on the top menu, and then Add custom role. Jump to the JSON tab. Click on Edit and paste the JSON object from below, modifying it according to your setup.

Change the following before you save:

• <ROLE NAME>: Role Name, e.g. "Keeper Secrets Manager"

• <DESCRIPTION>: Description, e.g. "Role for password rotation"

• <SUBSCRIPTION ID>: Subscription ID of this Azure subscription

{
    "properties": {
        "roleName": "<ROLE NAME>",
        "description": "<DESCRIPTION>",
        "assignableScopes": [
            "/subscriptions/<SUBSCRIPTION ID>"
        ],
        "permissions": [
            {
                "actions": [
                    "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read",
                    "Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read",
                    "Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/read",
                    "Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/read",
                    "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/instanceView/read",
                    "Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read",
                    "Microsoft.AAD/domainServices/read",
                    "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/read",
                    "Microsoft.Sql/servers/read",
                    "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/servers/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMySQL/servers/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/servers/databases/read",
                    "Microsoft.Sql/servers/write",
                    "Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/servers/write",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMySQL/servers/write",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMySQL/flexibleServers/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforPostgreSQL/flexibleServers/write",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMySQL/flexibleServers/write",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMariaDB/servers/read",
                    "Microsoft.DBforMariaDB/servers/write"
                ],
                "notActions": [],
                "dataActions": [],
                "notDataActions": []
            }
        ]
    }
}

Click Save.

When done, click Review + create, and click Create.

Once the role is created, it needs to be assigned to the Application (Service Principle). Click View in the Details column.

A panel will appear on the right side of the screen. Click Assignments, and then Add assignment.

Enter in the new role's name in the search bar on the Role tab, then double click it to select it. Move to the Members tab. Click Select members. In the panel that opens, enter the name of the Azure application, select the current application, and click Select.

Go to the Review + assign tab click Review + assign.

At this point, you have created the necessary roles and applications within your Azure environment.

PAM Features

The "PAM Features Allowed" and "Session Recording Types Allowed" sections in the PAM Configuration allow owners to enable or disable KeeperPAM features for resources managed through the PAM configuration:

Configuring PAM Features on PAM Record Types

After creating the PAM configuration, visit the following pages to:

• Configure Rotation

• Configure Connections

• Configure RBI

• Configure Tunnels

• Configure Discovery

Local Environment Overview

The PAM Configuration contains critical information on your local infrastructure, settings and associated Keeper Gateway. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for configuring the PAM Configuration in your local environment, enabling the Keeper Gateway to manage all resources within it and allowing users to utilize KeeperPAM features on those resources.

Prerequisites

Prior to proceeding with this guide, make sure to install and configure your Keeper Gateway.

Creating PAM Configuration

To create a new PAM Configuration:

• Login to the Keeper Vault

• Select Secrets Manager and the "PAM Configurations" tab

• Click on "New Configuration"

PAM Configuration Fields - Local Environment

The following tables provides more details on each configurable fields in the PAM Configuration record for the local environment:

For Discovery, the following fields are required, otherwise they are optional:

PAM Features

The "PAM Features Allowed" and "Session Recording Types Allowed" sections in the PAM Configuration allow owners to enable or disable KeeperPAM features for resources managed through the PAM configuration:

Configuring PAM Features on PAM Record Types

After creating the PAM configuration, visit the following pages to:

• Configure Rotation

• Configure Connections

• Configure RBI

• Configure Tunnels

• Configure Discovery