Hi Everyone.

That reminds me of an old idea that I had several years ago (not sure
if I had commented or not here), nevertheless, my idea was based on
the credentials rotations.

The goal is to avoid manually updating configurations across many
clients. Instead, we can enable the Bacula Director to push new
passwords to connected clients securely.

Here's a high level concept for a smooth credential rotation:

1. Dual-Password Configuration: Both the Director and the FD are
configured to accept two passwords: the Password (current) and an
OldPassword.
2 - Connection & Notification: An FD connects to the Director using
its current Password. During the session, the Director can signal that
a new password is available.
3 - Secure Update: The FD, over the already-authenticated connection,
requests the new password. The Director provides it, and the FD
updates its configuration (e.g., writes it to the file: or dynfile:
referenced in its config).
4 - Graceful Transition: For a defined period, both the old and new
passwords are valid. This prevents backup failures if a client
restarts before receiving the update.
5 - Cleanup: After a successful transition and a configured timeout,
the OldPassword is automatically retired from both sides.

Key Advantages:
=============
* Zero-Touch Rotation: Password changes can be initiated once from the
Director and propagate automatically to all active clients.
* No Backup Disruption: The dual-password window ensures operations
aren't interrupted during the rollout.
* Handles Scale: This works for 10 or 1,000 FDs without additional
manual effort.
* Complements External Secrets: This rotation mechanism would work
seamlessly with Clinton's proposed file:, dynfile:, or credstore:
directives. The FD would simply update the secret in the external
store or file.

Logically, not sure how technically complicated that can be !!! but in
theory, the idea should work well !! :-D

Salu2

-- 
--
Victor Hugo dos Santos
http://www.vhsantos.net
Linux Counter #224399


_______________________________________________
Bacula-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-devel

Reply via email to