Managing multiple servers, in excess of 90 currently with 3 devops via Ansible. All is working great, however there is a giant security problem right now. Each devop is using their own local ssh key to gain access directly to the servers. Each devop uses a laptop, and each laptop potentially could be be compromised thus opening the entire network of prod servers up to an attack.
I am looking for a solution to centrally manage access, and thus block access for any given key. Not dissimilar to how keys are added to bitbucket or github.
Off the top of my head I would assume the solution would be a tunnel from one machine, the gateway, to the desired prod server… while passing the gateway the request would pick up a new key and use to gain access to the prod server. The result would be we can quickly and efficiently kill access for any devop within seconds by just denying access to the gateway.
Is this good logic? Has anyone seen a solution out there already to thwart this problem?
Best Answer
That's too complicated (checking if a key has access to a specific prod server). Use the gateway server as jump host that accepts every valid key (but can easily remove access for a specific key which removes access to all servers in turn) and then add only the allowed keys to each respective server. After that, make sure you can reach the SSH port of every server only via the jump host.
This is the standard approach.