CyberArk SECRET-SEN - CyberArk Sentry Secrets Manager

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. Additionally, Conjur supports a standby node, which is a special type of follower node that can be promoted to a leader node in case of a leader failure. A standby node is synchronized with the leader node and can take over its role in a disaster recovery scenario. A possible Conjur node role change is when a standby node is promoted to a leader node, either manually or automatically, using the auto-failover feature. A follower node cannot be promoted to a leader node, as it does not have the same data and functionality as the leader node. A standby node cannot be promoted to a follower node, as it already has the same capabilities as a follower node, plus the ability to become a leader node. A leader node cannot be demoted to a standby node in the event of a failover, as it would lose its data and functionality and would not be able to resume its role as a leader node. References: 1: Conjur Architecture 2: Deploying Conjur on AWS 3: Auto-failover

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.

Line of business (LOB) is a term used by CyberArk Secrets Manager to describe the services that Conjur offers and typically refers to a group of application identities in Conjur. A LOB can be defined by a Conjur policy that grants permissions and access to secrets for a specific set of applications. For example, a LOB can represent a business unit, a project, a product, or a team within an organization. A LOB can also have sub-LOBs that inherit the permissions and secrets from the parent LOB, but can also have their own specific policies and secrets. A LOB can help organize and manage secrets for different applications in a hierarchical and scalable way. References: CyberArk Secrets Manager - Line of Business; CyberArk Secrets Manager - Policy Management; CyberArk Secrets Manager - Application Identity Management

The cause of the issue is that the host does not have access to the credential. This can happen if the host does not have the correct permissions or if the credential is not properly configured in the Vault Conjur Synchronizer.

The Vault Conjur Synchronizer is a tool that enables the integration between CyberArk Vault and Conjur Secrets Manager Enterprise. The Synchronizer synchronizes secrets that are stored and managed in the CyberArk Vault with Conjur Enterprise, and allows them to be used via Conjur clients, APIs, and SDKs. The Synchronizer creates and updates Conjur policies and variables based on the Vault accounts and safes, and assigns permissions to Conjur hosts based on the Vault allowed machines.

To fix this issue, the host needs to have the permission to access the credential in Conjur. This can be done by adding the host to the allowed machines list of the Vault account that corresponds to the credential, and synchronizing the changes with Conjur. Alternatively, the host can be granted the permission to access the credential in Conjur by modifying the Conjur policy that corresponds to the Vault safe that contains the credential, and loading the policy to Conjur. However, this may cause conflicts or inconsistencies with the Synchronizer, and is not recommended.

For more information, see the CyberArk Vault Synchronizer docs1 and the Synchronizer Troubleshooting guide2.

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 CCP (Central Credential Provider) is a tool that enables applications to securely retrieve credentials from CyberArk Secrets Manager without hard-coding or storing them in files. The CCP can be installed on a single server or on multiple servers behind a load balancer for high availability and scalability. The load balancer is a device or service that distributes the network traffic among the CCP servers based on predefined rules and criteria.

The CCP supports multiple methods to authenticate applications, such as Allowed Machines, Client Certificate, OS User, Path, and Hash. These methods are based on registering information in the Vault with the unique application ID. For more information about the supported authentication methods, see Application authentication methods1.

When installing the CCP and configuring it for use behind a load balancer, some authentication methods may be affected by the load balancer’s behavior and settings. Specifically, the following authentication methods may be affected:

Allowed Machines authentication: This method authenticates applications based on their IP address or hostname. If the load balancer replaces the source IP or hostname of the routed packets with its own IP or hostname, the CCP will not be able to authenticate the application that initiated the credential request. To enable the CCP to resolve the IP or hostname of the application, the load balancer needs to be configured as a transparent proxy or to attach the X-Forwarded-For header to the routed packets. For more information, see Load balance the Central Credential Provider2.

Client Certificate authentication: This method authenticates applications based on their client certificate that is signed by a trusted certificate authority (CA). The client certificate is used to establish a secure and trusted connection between the application and the CCP. If the load balancer terminates the SSL connection before proxying the traffic to the CCP, the CCP will not be able to verify the client certificate of the application. To enable the CCP to validate the client certificate, the load balancer needs to be configured as a pass-through proxy or to forward the client certificate to the CCP. For more information, see Load balance the Central Credential Provider2.

The other authentication methods are not affected by the load balancer, as they do not rely on the IP, hostname, or certificate of the application. For example, the OS User method authenticates applications based on their Windows domain user, the Path method authenticates applications based on their URL path, and the Hash method authenticates applications based on a hash value that is generated from the application ID and a shared secret. These methods do not require any special configuration on the load balancer or the CCP.

The correct sequence of installation steps for a Credential Provider on a Linux host is as follows:

Download the correct install package to a directory on the Linux host and decompress1.

Copy the aimparms.sample file to /var/tmp/aimparms. Create a Credential File with an account with sufficient permissions to install. Modify the Vault.ini file to point to the correct vault2.

Install the correct Credential Provider package for the distribution of Linux using the command: rpm -ivh CARKaim-..rpm2.

Check that the aimprv service is running using the command: service aimprv status2.

References: 1: Download the Credential Provider 2: Install Credential Provider on Linux / AIX

This is the correct answer because the log file shows the error message “CEADBR009E Failed to load policy through SDK” and the exception message “The number of LOBs exceeds the limit”. This indicates that the Vault Conjur Synchronizer service (Synchronizer) encountered a problem when trying to sync the secrets from the CyberArk Vault to the Conjur database using the Conjur SDK. The Conjur SDK is a library that allows the Synchronizer to interact with the Conjur REST API and perform operations on the Conjur resources, such as roles, policies, secrets, and audit records. The number of LOBs refers to the number of lines of business (LOBs) that are configured in the Synchronizer. A LOB is a logical grouping of secrets that belong to a specific business unit or function. Each LOB has its own configuration file that specifies the source safe, the target policy, and the mapping rules for the secrets. The Synchronizer can sync multiple LOBs concurrently using multiple threads. However, there is a limit on the number of threads that the Synchronizer can use, which depends on the hardware and software specifications of the Synchronizer machine. If the number of LOBs exceeds the number of threads, the Synchronizer will not be able to sync all the LOBs and will generate an error. This answer is based on the CyberArk Secrets Manager documentation and the CyberArk Secrets Manager training course.