Configuring Host and Host-Credential Settings

This section describes how to manage host and host-credential settings for hosts, host groups, and globally.

Host settings define Key Manager host-management characteristics, such as host-scan intervals and timeout periods for job-related actions.

Host-credential settings allow you to store credentials that are commonly used for adding hosts, which eliminates the need to input those credentials each time you add hosts. Host-credential settings also allow you to instruct how Key Manager adds hosts that use privilege-elevation software (such as Powerbroker or Privilege Manager for Unix).

Host and host-credential settings can be set on multiple levels: globally, per host group, and per host.

• Global host and host-credential settings apply to all the hosts in the managed environment.

• Host-group-specific settings apply to the hosts that are part of the host group.

• Host-specific settings apply only to the host itself. Note that host-credential settings cannot be set for individual hosts.

Host-specific settings overwrite host-group and global settings on the host, and similarly, host-group settings overwrite global settings within the host group. If a setting is not overwritten by a host, the host inherits this setting from the host groups it belongs to. Furthermore, if a setting is not overwritten by a host group, the host group inherits this setting from its ancestor host groups or from the global settings.

If a host belongs to multiple host groups, the host inherits this setting from the host group belonging to the highest-priority host-group hierarchy.

You can determine the effective settings of a host from its Settings panel. To do this, navigate to the Hosts page, and perform a Settings action on the target host.

The effective settings of a host can also be reviewed via the command-line client (detailed in list-host-settings.)

ssh-mgr-client set-host-setting

For more information about the function of each host and host-credential setting, see Host Settings and Host-Credential Settings respectively.

Figure 7.1. Example of effective host settings under various scenarios

note

When a host-specific setting is cleared, that host will then inherit the setting value from the host groups it belongs to. If the setting is not set for any of those host groups, the setting value is inherited from global host settings.

Configuring Settings for Individual Hosts

You can configure settings for individual hosts in the managed environment.

Host-specific settings overwrite host-group and global settings on their associated host. If a host-specific setting is cleared or otherwise not set, the host inherits this setting as described in Configuring Host and Host-Credential Settings.

To configure the settings of an individual host, navigate to the Hosts page, and perform a Settings action on the target host.

Settings for individual hosts can be set via the command-line client using the set-host-setting command (described in set-host-setting:

ssh-mgr-client set-host-setting

Configuring Settings for Host Groups

You can configure settings for host groups. Settings configured for a host group are inherited by all the hosts in the host group.

Host-group settings overwrite the global settings on the hosts belonging to the host group. If a setting is cleared or otherwise not set for the host group, the hosts in the host group inherit this setting from the global settings as described in Configuring Host and Host-Credential Settings. Note that host-group settings never overwrite host-specific settings.

To configure the settings of a host group, navigate to the Host groups page, and perform a Settings action on the target host group.

Settings for host groups can be set via the command-line client using the set-host-group-setting command (described in set-host-group-setting:

ssh-mgr-client set-host-group-setting

For more information about host-credential settings, see Host-Credential Settings.

Configuring Global Host and Host-Credential Settings

You can configure settings for host groups. Global settings are inherited by all the hosts and host groups that do not overwrite the setting.

• Global host settings are configured on the Settings→General→Host page.

• Global host-credential settings are configured on the Settings→General→Host credentials page.

note

Global deployment credentials allow all Key Manager administrators with deployment permission to add hosts using these credentials. Also, setting privilege-elevation credentials for hosts that do not use privilege elevation makes it impossible for Key Manager to manage such hosts. For better control over the scope of host-credential settings, consider setting them for host groups instead.

Settings can be set globally via the command-line client using the set-global-setting command (described in set-global-setting):

ssh-mgr-client set-global-setting