JS7 JobScheduler

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Introduction

  • The JS7 components are easy to install out-of-the-box. However, a number of configuration items have to be considered when operating the JS7 for a secure environment.
  • Secure operation is applied at the following areas:
    • Connection Management
      • Network Connections
      • Database Connections
    • Access Management
      • Authentication
      • Authorization
    • Credentials Management
      • Database Credentials
      • Job Credentials
  • Secure operation includes users configuring JS7 components in a compliance conformant way.

Connection Management

JS7 components use the following connections:



Network Connections

All network connections are unidirectional, as indicated by the direction of the arrows in the above diagram.

Default Configuration

The following default configuration is implemented by the installer if users do not modify settings during installation:

  • All network connections make use of HTTP:
  • Port Usage
    • The JOC Cockpit can be accessed at port 4446
    • The JOC Cockpit REST Web Service can be accessed at port 4446
    • The JS7 Controller uses port 4444
    • The JS7 Agent listens to port 4445
  • Network Interface Usage
    • By default JS7 components will listen to the above mentioned ports on any available network interfaces.
  • Firewall Settings
    • Open ports in your firewall exclusively for the hosts, protocols and ports as specified above. Consider allowing connections only for the directions indicated in the diagram above.

Secure Configuration

The following settings are recommend to ensure secure network connections:

Database Connections

JOC Cockpit is the only JS7 component using a database.

Database connections are based on JDBC. If JDBC type 4 drivers are used then a DBMS client is not required for operation of JOC Cockpit. The Hibernate access layer is used for database access.

Default Configuration

  • JS7 ships with JDBC Drivers that are open source or that are free for distribution with JS7.
  • The JOC Cockpit installer allows
    • to specify alternative JDBC Drivers that can be downloaded from the relevant vendor's web site.
    • to specify individual Hibernate configuration files with security related settings.
  • For details see JS7 - Database.

Secure Configuration

  • Depending on the DBMS version in use it is preferable to download and to apply the DBMS vendor's current JDBC Driver version:
    • For use with MySQL® the JDBC Driver is not included with JS7. Instead a MariaDB® driver is provided to access MySQL® databases.
    • For use with SQL Server® the JDBC Driver is not included, instead users have to download a current JDBC Driver from the vendor's site.
    • For use with Oracle® newer JDBC Driver versions are available from the vendor's web site.
  • Vendor-specific JDBC Drivers include support for specific authentication mechanisms, for example use of JDBC with Oracle Wallet.
  • Consider additional security related settings that apply to your DBMS in the Hibernate configuration file, for the location of this file see JS7 - Database.

Access Management

Access to JS7 components is centrally secured by the JS7 - REST Web Service API. This interface is used by the JS7 - Browser User Interface and by external applications using the REST API.

Roles and Permissions

Default Configuration

  • Consider the hints from the JOC Cockpit - Security article
  • The JS7 - REST Web Service API ships with a default configuration in ./joc/resources/joc/shiro.ini that includes
    • using local authentication with accounts and passwords stored as hash values.
    • using local role assignment,
    • the following default values for accounts, passwords and assigned roles (see JOC Cockpit - Authentication and Authorization for more information):
      • Active Accounts:
        • root=root, all
      • Deactivated Accounts (passwords are presented in plain text and are hashed in the shiro.ini configuration file:

        • # administrator=secret, administrator
          # application_manager=secret, application_manager
          # it_operator=secret, it_operator
          # incident_manager=secret, incident_manager
          # business_user=secret, business_user
          # api_user=secret, api_user

  • The JS7 Controller is not to be accessed by users directly but exclusively via the JS7 - REST Web Service API. No default authentication is provided.
  • JS7 Agents are not to be accessed by users directly but exclusively by a JS7 Controller. No default authentication is provided.

Secure Configuration

  • It is not recommended to use the default accounts that ship with JOC Cockpit. Default accounts are intended to enable initial login only.
  • A fine-grained set of permissions is available that apply to any operation in JOC Cockpit and in the REST Web Service. Such permissions can freely be grouped to roles.
  • If possible then LDAP Directory Services should be used to establish role assignment to users based on membership in LDAP security groups.

LDAP Directory Service

Default Configuration

  • No LDAP Directory Service integration is in place.
  • It is not recommended to use the default configuration with local authentication for access to JOC Cockpit.

Secure Configuration

  • LDAP Directory Services can be accessed for authentication and authorization:
    • users can connect by specifying their domain account.
    • optionally membership in security groups can be mapped to roles.
  • Using LDAP allows to operate a JOC Cockpit configuration that contains no account data, no passwords and no role assignments to users. 
  • This applies to any LDAP compliant product such as Microsoft Active Directory®, OpenLDAP etc.
  • For details about LDAP configuration see LDAP Configuration.

Credentials Management

Database Credentials

Default Configuration

  • Database credentials are specified during installation and are added to the following Hibernate configuration files:
    • JOC Cockpit: for access to the reporting database: ./resources/joc/reporting.hibernate.cfg.xml
    • For details see JS7 - Database.
  • No default values are provided by the installer.

Secure Configuration

  • Do not use passwords.
    • Users frequently ask if JS7 can encrypt credentials. The answer is "no" as it makes no sense to handle a symmetric key that is in reach of the component that makes use of it. Encrypted passwords correspond to the "key under the mat", they do not provide additional security, however, they perfectly contribute to obfuscation.
    • There is one way only how to handle passwords: not to use them.
  • Use Integrated Security

Job Credentials

Default Configuration

  • The Windows Service for the JS7 Controller and Agent runs in the system account. 
    • The installer allows to specify a different account and to add credentials for that account.
  • By default jobs are executed in the context of the account that the JS7 Controller or JS7 Agent are operated for.

Secure Configuration

  • It is a bad idea to run a JS7 Controller or Agent using a Unix root account or Windows Administrator account.
    • Certainly this makes life easy when it comes to switching to other user accounts or for accessing files.
    • However, you should not grant more permissions to a process than required.
  • Use specific user accounts to run JS7 Controllers and Agents:
    • Do not use the system account (Windows) or root (Unix).
    • Create specific service accounts that are limited to privileges that are required to execute jobs.
  • Do not specify credentials for Windows Service accounts during installation:
    • The installer does not store such credentials but forwards them to the Windows Service interface, however, there is no guarantee that such credentials will be logged by some Windows mechanism.
    • Instead, use the Windows Service Panel to manually specify credentials for the service account.
  • There are a number of options when it comes to running jobs for different user accounts:
    • For Unix environments
      • Your job scripts can switch to a different user context by use of sudo or su commands. sudo is the preferred option as this the standard Unix tool that allows secure configuration of the users that are allowed to execute certain commands (sudoers file). In addition sudo provides reporting capabilities about (ab)use of commands.
    • For Windows environments
      • You can use the Windows Credential Manager to safely store credentials of the user account that a job should be executed for. The JobScheduler will then read the credentials and create a new process to run a job in the target user context. This is the preferred solution as it does not store credentials with the JobScheduler configuration.
      • Find detailed information from the JobScheduler Universal Agent - Running jobs as a different user article.
    • For all environments
  • For jobs that require credentials, e.g. to access a database, a credential store can be used, see the Using a Credential Store for Jobs article.
    • Credentials are not provided from parameters (that could be logged in clear text), instead an interface is provided that allows on demand access to the credential store. 
    • This feature is available for Shell jobs and for JVM jobs.

File Transfer Credentials

Such credentials apply to use of the YADE file transfer utility that is available from built-in job templates.

Default Configuration

Secure Configuration



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