SECRET-SEN CyberArk Sentry Secrets Manager Questions and Answers

 = This error occurs when the Vault Conjur Synchronizer installation script tries to log in to the Vault using the admin user credentials, but the admin user is already logged in to other sessions. The Vault has a limit on the number of concurrent sessions per user, and the default value is one. Therefore, the installation script fails to authenticate the admin user and returns the error message: Forbidden Logon Token is Empty - Cannot logon Unauthorized. To remediate the issue, the admin user must log out of any other sessions before running the installation script, or increase the limit on the number of concurrent sessions per user in the Vault configuration file12. References: =

• Troubleshoot CyberArk Vault Synchronizer 1, Error: Forbidden Logon Token is Empty - Cannot logon Unauthorized
• Vault.ini File Parameters 2, ConcurrentSessionsPerUser

Conjur is a secrets management solution that securely stores and manages secrets and credentials used by applications, DevOps tools, and other systems. Conjur can be deployed in different scenarios, depending on the needs and preferences of the organization. One of the possible deployment scenarios is to deploy the Leader cluster outside a Kubernetes environment, and the Followers and Standbys inside or outside the environment.

The Leader cluster is the primary node that handles all write operations and coordinates the replication of data to the Follower and Standby nodes. The Leader cluster consists of one active Leader node and one or more Standby nodes that can be promoted to Leader in case of a failure. The Leader cluster can be deployed outside a Kubernetes environment, such as on a virtual machine or a physical server, using Docker or other installation methods. This can provide more control and flexibility over the configuration and management of the Leader cluster, as well as better performance and security.

The Follower and Standby nodes are read-only replicas of the Leader node that can serve requests from clients and applications that need to retrieve secrets or perform other read-only operations. The Follower and Standby nodes can be deployed inside or outside a Kubernetes environment, depending on the use case and the availability requirements. For example, if the clients and applications are running inside a Kubernetes cluster, it may be convenient and efficient to deploy the Follower and Standby nodes inside the same cluster, using Helm charts or other methods. This can reduce the network latency and complexity, and leverage the Kubernetes features such as service discovery, load balancing, and health checks. Alternatively, if the clients and applications are running outside a Kubernetes cluster, or if there is a need to distribute the Follower and Standby nodes across different regions or availability zones, it may be preferable to deploy the Follower and Standby nodes outside the Kubernetes cluster, using Docker or other methods. This can provide more scalability and resiliency, and avoid the dependency on the Kubernetes cluster.

References = Conjur Deployment Scenarios; Conjur Cluster Installation; Conjur Kubernetes Integration

This is the correct answer because the SynchronizerReplication.config file contains the configuration settings for the Vault Conjur Synchronizer service (Synchronizer) to sync secrets from the CyberArk Vault to the Conjur database. The SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter specifies whether to sync all the properties of the accounts in the Vault or only the password property. By default, the SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter is set to false, which means that only the password property is synced. To sync all the properties, such as the address and the user, the SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter needs to be set to true. This answer is based on the CyberArk Secrets Manager documentation1 and the CyberArk Secrets Manager training course2.

The other options are not correct because they do not configure the Synchronizer to properly sync all properties. Modifying VaultConjurSynchronizer.exe.config, uncommenting SYNCALLPROPERTIES and updating its value to true is not a valid option, as this file does not contain the SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter. The VaultConjurSynchronizer.exe.config file contains the configuration settings for the Synchronizer service, such as the log level, the log path, and the service name. The SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter is only found in the SynchronizerReplication.config file.

Modifying Vault.ini, uncommenting SYNCALLPROPERTIES and updating its value to true is not a valid option, as this file does not contain the SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter. The Vault.ini file contains the configuration settings for the CyberArk Central Credential Provider (CCP) to connect to the Vault server and provide credentials to the applications. The SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter is not related to the CCP configuration or functionality.

In the Conjur UI under Cluster > Synchronizer > Config, changing SYNCALLPROPERTIES and updating its value to true is not a valid option, as this section does not exist in the Conjur UI. The Conjur UI does not have a Cluster, Synchronizer, or Config section. The Conjur UI has a Cluster Config section under Settings, but this section is used to configure the Conjur cluster settings, such as the master IP address, the follower IP address, and the seed fetcher IP address. The SYNCALLPROPERTIES parameter is not related to the Conjur cluster configuration or functionality.

Conjur Followers are read-only replicas of the Leader that can serve client requests for authentication, authorization, and secret retrieval. However, Followers cannot perform write operations, such as creating or updating secrets, policies, or roles. If the Leader becomes unavailable, the Followers will not be able to sync with the latest data and will eventually become stale. To ensure high availability and data consistency, the customer should extend the auto-failover cluster to include Standbys in each data center. Standbys are also replicas of the Leader, but they can participate in replication and promotion. One Standby is configured for synchronous replication, which means it receives the same updates as the Leader at the same time. The other Standbys are configured for asynchronous replication, which means they receive updates from the Leader periodically, but not in real time. In case of Leader failure, the synchronous Standby can be automatically promoted to become the new Leader, and one of the asynchronous Standbys can become the new synchronous Standby. This way, the customer can ensure that there is always an up-to-date Leader that can serve write requests and sync with the Followers in different data centers. References: Set up Follower, Set up auto-failover cluster, Conjur architecture and deployment reference

References:

• CyberArk Sentry Secrets Manager documentation: https://docs.cyberark.com/Portal/Content/Resources/_TopNav/cc_Portal.htm
• CyberArk Sentry Secrets Manager course materials: https://training.cyberark.com/learn
• CyberArk whitepapers and technical resources: https://www.cyberark.com/resources/home/cyberark-secrets-manager

• The authentication flow begins with the requester presenting their credentials to Conjur. This can be in the form of a username and password, an API key, or another supported method.
• Conjur verifies the presented credentials against its internal database. If the credentials are valid, Conjur generates and returns a short-lived access token to the requester.
• The requester includes the access token with every subsequent request to access Conjur resources. This allows Conjur to identify the requester and authorize their access to specific secrets and functionalities based on configured policies.
• Finally, each request is evaluated against the Conjur RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) rules defined in its policy. These rules determine which users and roles have access to specific resources and what actions they can perform. Only requests that comply with these rules are granted access.

o enable synchronous replication on a Conjur cluster, you need to run the command evoke replication sync that on the Leader node of the cluster. This command will configure the Leader to wait for confirmation from all Standbys before committing any transaction to the database. This ensures that the data is consistent across all nodes and prevents data loss in case of a failover. However, this also increases the latency and reduces the throughput of the cluster, so it should be used with caution and only when required by the business or compliance needs.

References:

• Conjur Cluster Replication
• Sentry - Secrets Manager - Sample Items & Study Guide

The log entry shows a failed authentication attempt with Conjur using the authn-jwt method. This method allows applications to authenticate with Conjur using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) that are signed by a trusted identity provider. In this case, the application is Jenkins, which is a CI/CD tool that can integrate with Conjur using the Conjur Jenkins plugin. The plugin allows Jenkins to securely retrieve secrets from Conjur and inject them as environment variables into Jenkins pipelines or projects.

The log entry indicates that the JWT sent by Jenkins was rejected by Conjur because of an SSL connection error. The error message says that the certificate chain of Jenkins could not be verified by Conjur, and that the certificate authority (CA) that signed the Jenkins certificate was unknown to Conjur. This means that the Jenkins certificate chain is not trusted by Conjur, and that Conjur does not have the CA certificate of Jenkins in its trust store. Therefore, Conjur cannot establish a secure and trusted connection with Jenkins, and cannot validate the JWT signature.

To fix this problem, the Jenkins certificate chain needs to be trusted by Conjur. This can be done by copying the CA certificate of Jenkins to the Conjur server, and adding it to the Conjur trust store. The Conjur trust store is a directory that contains the CA certificates of the trusted identity providers for the authn-jwt method. The Conjur server also needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect.

References = Conjur Jenkins Plugin; Conjur JWT Authentication; Conjur Trust Store

Followers are read-only replicas of the Leader that perform asynchronous replication from the Leader. This means that they receive updates from the Leader periodically, but not in real time. Followers are designed to handle all types of read requests from workloads and applications, such as authentication, permission checks, and secret fetches. Followers can scale horizontally to support a large number of concurrent requests and reduce the load on the Leader. Followers also provide high availability and disaster recovery by serving as backup nodes in case of Leader failure or network partition. References: Set up Follower, Deploy the Conjur Follower, Follower architecture

This is the correct answer because the message indicates that the audit retention process has successfully completed and deleted the specified number of rows from the audit database (audit.db). The audit retention process is a scheduled task that runs periodically to delete old audit records from the audit database based on the retention period configured in the Conjur UI. The audit retention process also performs a vacuum operation to reclaim the disk space and optimize the database performance. The message does not require any action from the user, as it is a normal and expected outcome of the audit retention process. This answer is based on the CyberArk Secrets Manager documentation1 and the CyberArk Secrets Manager training course2.

The other options are not correct statements about the message. The message does not imply that the user specified for Conjur does not have the appropriate permissions to retrieve the audit database, as the message is not an error or a warning, but a confirmation of the audit retention process. The user specified for Conjur is the user that is used to connect to the Conjur server and perform operations on the Conjur resources, such as roles, policies, secrets, and audit records. The user specified for Conjur needs to have the appropriate permissions to access the audit database, but the message does not indicate any problem with the user permissions.

The message does not imply that when audit retention was performed, the query on the UI audit database generated an error, as the message is not an error or a warning, but a confirmation of the audit retention process. The query on the UI audit database is the query that is used to display the audit records in the Conjur UI. The query on the UI audit database is not related to the audit retention process, which is a background task that runs on the Conjur server and deletes the old audit records from the audit database. The message does not indicate any problem with the query on the UI audit database.

The message does not imply that the Vault Conjur Synchronizer successfully deleted the password objects that were marked for deletion in the PVWA, as the message is not related to the Vault Conjur Synchronizer or the password objects. The Vault Conjur Synchronizer is a service that synchronizes secrets from the CyberArk Vault to the Conjur database. The password objects are the accounts in the CyberArk Vault that store the credentials for various platforms and devices. The message is related to the audit retention process, which deletes the old audit records from the audit database. The message does not indicate any problem or action with the Vault Conjur Synchronizer or the password objects.

The most likely cause for this issue is A. malformed Policy file. A 422 Response from Conjur indicates that the request was well-formed but was unable to be followed due to semantic errors. A common semantic error when loading policy is having a malformed Policy file, which means that the Policy file does not follow the correct syntax, structure, or logic of the Conjur Policy language. A malformed Policy file can result from typos, missing or extra characters, incorrect indentation, invalid references, or other mistakes that prevent Conjur from parsing and applying the Policy file. The message that accompanies the 422 Response will usually provide more details about the error and the location of the problem in the Policy file.

To resolve this issue, you should review the Policy file and check for any errors or inconsistencies. You can use a YAML validator or a text editor with syntax highlighting to help you identify and correct any syntax errors. You can also use the Conjur Policy Simulator to test and debug your Policy file before loading it to Conjur. The Conjur Policy Simulator is a web-based tool that allows you to upload your Policy file and see how it will affect the Conjur data model, without actually loading it to Conjur. You can also use the Conjur Policy Simulator to compare different versions of your Policy file and see the changes and conflicts between them. For more information, refer to the following resources:

• Policy - CyberArk, Section “Policy”
• Policy Language - CyberArk, Section “Policy Language”
• Conjur Policy Simulator - CyberArk, Section “Conjur Policy Simulator”

According to the CyberArk Sentry Secrets Manager documentation, Conjur is a secrets management solution that consists of a leader node and one or more follower nodes. The leader node is responsible for managing the secrets, policies, and audit records, while the follower nodes are read-only replicas that can serve secrets requests from applications. To achieve high availability in AWS cloud infrastructure, the minimally viable Conjur deployment architecture is to have one follower in each availability zone (AZ) and a load balancer for the region. This way, if one AZ fails, the applications can still access secrets from another AZ through the load balancer. Having two followers in each region, load balanced for the region, is not enough to ensure high availability, as a regional outage can affect both followers. Having two followers in each AZ, load balanced for the region, is more than necessary, as one follower per AZ can handle the secrets requests. Having two followers in each region, load balanced across all regions, is not feasible, as Conjur does not support cross-region replication. References: 1: Conjur Architecture 2: Deploying Conjur on AWS

C. docker exec evoke ca import – –no-restart

This is the correct command to import the root CA certificate into Conjur. The evoke ca import command is used to import a certificate authority (CA) certificate into the Conjur appliance. The certificate can be either a root CA or an intermediate CA. The – –no-restart option prevents the Conjur appliance from restarting after importing the certificate. The parameter specifies the path and name of the root CA certificate file to be imported. This command will add the root CA certificate to the trusted CA store of the Conjur appliance, which is used to validate the certificates of the clients and servers that communicate with Conjur. This command is documented in the Conjur documentation1 and the Conjur training course2.

The other options are not correct commands to import the root CA certificate into Conjur. The evoke import command does not exist. The – –root option is not a valid option for the evoke ca import command. The ca import command is not a valid docker exec command.

In the event of a Leader failure, you can perform a manual failover to promote one of the Standbys to be the new Leader. The manual failover process consists of the following steps:

• Suspend replication for all Standbys and Followers and identify the best failover candidate. This step ensures that no data is lost or corrupted during the failover process. The best failover candidate is the Standby with the most advanced replication timeline, which means it has the most up-to-date data from the Leader.
• Promote the failover candidate to be the new Leader. This step changes the role of the failover candidate from a Standby to a Leader, and updates its configuration accordingly. The new Leader can now accept write requests from clients and replicate data to other nodes.
• Restore replication. This step re-establishes the replication connections between the new Leader and the other nodes, and rebases the replication of the other Standbys and Followers to the new Leader. This ensures that all nodes have the same data and are in sync with the new Leader.

References: The manual failover configuration steps are explained in detail in the Configure Manual Failover section of the CyberArk Conjur Enterprise documentation. The image in the question is taken from the same source.

ServiceAccount and StatefulSet are two of the Kubernetes resources/objects that can be used as Conjur identities, in addition to Namespace and Deployment. Conjur identities are the entities that can authenticate with Conjur and retrieve secrets from it. Conjur supports authenticating Kubernetes resources/objects using the Conjur Kubernetes Authenticator, which is a sidecar or init container that runs alongside the application container and injects the Conjur access token into a shared volume. The application container can then use the access token to fetch secrets from Conjur.

A ServiceAccount is a Kubernetes resource that represents an identity for processes that run in a pod. ServiceAccounts can be used to grant specific privileges and permissions to the pod, and to enable communication with the Kubernetes API server. A ServiceAccount can be used as a Conjur identity by annotating it with the Conjur authentication policy branch ID, and by creating a Conjur host entity that matches the ServiceAccount name and namespace. The Conjur Kubernetes Authenticator will then use the ServiceAccount token to authenticate the pod with Conjur and obtain the Conjur access token.

A StatefulSet is a Kubernetes resource that manages the deployment and scaling of a set of pods, and provides guarantees about the ordering and uniqueness of these pods. StatefulSets are useful for applications that require stable and persistent identities, such as databases, message brokers, or distributed systems. A StatefulSet can be used as a Conjur identity by annotating it with the Conjur authentication policy branch ID, and by creating a Conjur host entity that matches the StatefulSet name and namespace. The Conjur Kubernetes Authenticator will then use the pod name and namespace to authenticate the pod with Conjur and obtain the Conjur access token.

The other options are not valid Kubernetes resources/objects that can be used as Conjur identities. Replica sets are a lower-level resource that are usually managed by higher-level resources such as Deployments or StatefulSets, and do not have their own identity or annotations. Secrets are a Kubernetes resource that store sensitive information such as passwords, tokens, or keys, and are not meant to be used as identities. Tokenreviews are a Kubernetes resource that are used to verify the validity of a ServiceAccount token, and are not meant to be used as identities either. References:

• Securing Secrets in Kubernetes - CyberArk Developer, Section “Conjur Kubernetes Authentication: A Hands-On Demonstration”
• GitHub - cyberark/secrets-provider-for-k8s: Cyberark secrets provider …, Section “Consuming Secrets from CyberArk Secrets Provider”
• Secure your Kubernetes-deployed applications with CyberArk Conjur, Section “How it works”
• Simplify and Improve Container Security Using New CyberArk Conjur …, Section “CyberArk Conjur Enterprise”
• Keeping Secrets Secure on Kubernetes - CyberArk Developer, Section “The Solution”

 Conjur uses TLS certificates for authentication between nodes and clients. These certificates are either self-signed by Conjur or imported from a third-party CA. All the certificates are stored in the /opt/conjur/etc/ssl directory from the Conjur containers. This directory contains the following files:

• ca.crt: The CA certificate used to verify all Conjur node certificates. This is either the self-signed Conjur CA certificate or the imported third-party CA certificate.
• server.crt: The server certificate used by the Conjur node for HTTPS and mTLS connections. This certificate contains the DNS names of the node and the load balancer in the CN and SAN fields.
• server.key: The private key corresponding to the server certificate.
• cert.pem: A symbolic link to the server certificate file.
• key.pem: A symbolic link to the server key file.

References: Certificate architecture, Certificate requirements, Rotate certificates

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