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The critical point when it comes to job scheduling is the fact that it perfectly implements code injection across your network - which is what is usually is called a vulnerability.

• Jobs are code, frequently shell commands, that which are forwarded to remote servers and are executed in unattended mode.
• Users have to open their network and make their firewalls look like swiss cheese to allow a central server where a job scheduling product is operated to access any remote servers in their network.

The JS7 introduces digital signing for the deployment of objects such as workflows and jobs.

• Digital signatures are created automatically and do not increase the effort for the deployment of objects.
• The security mechanism includes to have having certificates for digital signatures ready with the Controller and the Agents that execute jobs. If the signature does not match the available certificates then deployment is denied. This mechanism does not prevent an authorized person from deploying workflows and but it prevents attackers from hijacking a user's identity and deploying malicious code.

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• The signing process is performed by the JOC Cockpit and includes:
  • the user to be is assigned a private key and a certificate (X.509) or a public/private key (PGP),
  • to create a signature from the JSON representation of the respective inventory object by use of the user's private key.
• The verification process is performed by the Controller and Agent that is which has been assigned the respective relevant workflow and job:
  • Both Controller and Agents look up available X.509 certificates and PGP public keys from files with the following locations:
    • Unix
      • X.509 certificates: ./config/private/trusted-x509-keys
      • PGP public key: ./config/private/trusted-pgp-keys
    • Windows
      • X.509 certificates: .\config\private\trusted-x509-keys
      • PGP public key: .\config\private\trusted-pgp-keys
  • If a certificate or public key is found then the signature of the deployed object is verified like thisas follows:
    • X.509: 
      • the Root CA certificate or Intermediate CA certificate has to be in place that was used originally to sign the user's private key key has to be in place or
      • the user's certificate has to be in place.
      • Using the Root CA certificate or Intermediate CA certificates simplifies certificate management as only a single certificate file only has to be present with for any Controller or Agent instance. At the same time, security-aware administrators might prefer to deploy individual user certificates to Controller and Agent instances for more fine-grained control to of which Agent workflows and other objects can be deployed by a specific user.
    • PGP: the public key available for the given user who signed the deployed object has to be present.
  • Controller and Agent instances make use of any all the certificate files and public key files found in the directories mentioned above. If non none of the files matches the signature of a deployable object then deployment is denied.

Security Levels

The JOC Cockpit is installed for one of the following security levels, see see the JS7 - Security Architecture article for more information.

Depending on The signing process includes the following steps according to the JOC Cockpit security level in use the signing process includes the following steps:

• Security Level Low
  • Inventory objects are automatically signed with the private key that is stored with the root account.
  • Signing is automatically applied when performing the Deploy operation.
• Security Level Medium
  • Inventory objects are automatically signed with the private key that is stored with the current user's account.
  • Signing is automatically applied when performing the Deploy operation.
• Security Level High
  • Inventory objects are signed outside of JOC Cockpit:
    • Inventory objects are exported using the Export operation that offers using the option for signing.
    • The export archive is transferred to a secure device, e.g. to a secure desktop machine.
    • The export archive is extracted and each inventory object file included is signed individually signed. 
      • There is no pre-requisite about prerequisite regarding the tools used for signing. For example the OpenSSL command line utility can be used and as well as tools such as OpenPGP Kleopatra can be used.
      • The signing step includes to create creating a signature file for each inventory file with the same name and the extension .asc.
    • The signed inventory files and signature files are added to the same or to a new .zip archive file.
  • The archive file that includes signatures for the inventory objects object signatures is imported to by the JOC Cockpit. The deployment step is performed inline with the import step.

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