A Rotated Secret that is associated with a Linked Target offers an easier way to manage automated password rotation for Local users with the same login credentials across different servers simultaneously.

This type of Linked Target by default Authenticates using the Parent Target credentials, supporting only Rotator Types of Password or Target.

When using Password as the Rotator Type, the Rotated Secret's username & password will be rotated on all hosts that are listed inside the Linked Target, where you can choose to either rotate those Local users to all have the same password or give each of them a different password to ensure the best practices of periodic rotation for users across different machines. In this mode, the Parent Target credentials will not be rotated as part of the Linked Target rotation. Those credentials should be rotated using a dedicated Rotated Secret for that Target.

When using Target as the Rotator Type the Parent credentials will be rotated, and all Local users will have the same password on all hosts. Therefore, the best practice in this mode is not to use the credentials of a domain user.

When a new server is created in your environment, simply add the relevant hostname to your Linked Target to gain automated rotation for any new server.

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Info

Only Windows/SSH Target are currently supported for Rotated Secrets with Linked Target. In case one of the hosts in a Linked Target item is accessible over a different port from the one that is configured in the Parent Target, make sure to specify the port as part of the host in the Linked Target. e.g: server01.com:443.

Rotator Type Password

To rotate Local users e.g. ubuntu or administrator, across your servers using a privileged Domain user which has access to all servers found in the Linked Target, start by creating an SSH or Windows Target to store your Domain user credentials:

akeyless create-windows-target \
--name <WindowsTargetName> \ 
--hostname <Windows Hostname\IP> \
--username <Domain@WindowsUsername> \
--password <Password>
--domain <YourDomain>

akeyless create-ssh-target \
--name <SSHTargetName> \
--host <SSH hostname> \
--port <SSH port> \
--ssh-username <SSH username@domain> \
--ssh-password <SSH password>

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Note

The Parent Target hostname will be the first host whose Local user's password will be rotated.

To Rotate the Domain user password, best practice is to create a dedicated Rotated Secret for that Target.

Create a Linked Target with the relevant hosts to rotate your Local users' passwords :

akeyless create-linked-target -n <LinkedTargetName> -p <WindowsTargetName> -s <hosts>

akeyless create-linked-target -n <LinkedTargetName> -p <SSHTargetName> -s <hosts> 

Create a Rotated Secret with rotator-type set to password:

akeyless rotated-secret create windows \
--name <Rotated secret name> \
--gateway-url 'https://<Your-Akeyless-GW-URL:8000>' \
--target-name <LinkedTargetName> \
--authentication-credentials <use-target-creds> \
--rotator-type password \
--rotated-username <Local username> \
--rotated-password <password> \
--same-password false \
--auto-rotate <true|false> \
--rotation-interval <1-365> \
--rotation-hour <hour in UTC>

akeyless rotated-secret create ssh \
--name <Rotated secret name> \
--gateway-url 'https://<Your-Akeyless-GW-URL:8000>' \
--target-name <LinkedTargetName> \
--authentication-credentials <use-target-creds> \
--rotator-type password \
--rotated-username <Local username> \
--rotated-password <password> \
--same-password false \
--auto-rotate <true|false> \
--rotation-interval <1-365> \
--rotation-hour <hour in UTC>

The Local user will be rotated using the Parent Target credentials as well across all hosts defined in the Linked Target.

Rotator Type Target

While working with Local users for a wide password rotation, all Local users must have the same password on all hosts.

Create an SSH or Windows Target to store your Local user credentials:

akeyless create-windows-target \
--name <WindowsTargetName> \ 
--hostname <Windows Hostname\IP> \
--username <Windows Local Username> \
--password <Password>

akeyless create-ssh-target \
--name <SSHTargetName> \
--host <SSH hostname> \
--port <SSH port> \
--ssh-username <SSH username> \
--ssh-password <SSH password>

Create a Linked Target with the relevant hosts to rotate your local users' passwords :

akeyless create-linked-target -n <LinkedTargetName> -p <WindowsTargetName> -s <hosts>

akeyless create-linked-target -n <LinkedTargetName> -p <SSHTargetName> -s <hosts> 

Create a Rotated Secret with rotator-type as target-rotator to rotate the Parent Target:

akeyless create-rotated-secret --name <secret name> \
--gateway-url 'https://<Your-Akeyless-GW-URL:8000>' \
--target-name <ParentTargetName> \
--authentication-credentials <use-target-creds> \
--rotator-type target \
--auto-rotate <true|false> \
--rotation-interval <1-365> \
--rotation-hour <hour in UTC>

The rotation will generate a new password for the Parent Target and will use it for all hosts for the same Local user.

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Warning

Working with --rotator-type target supports only Rotated Secret for the Parent Target which will trigger rotation on all associated Linked Targets hosts.

Fetching a Linked Target Rotated Secret

The secret value format of the Linked Target Rotated Secret is a key/value map where host:port are the map keys, with username/password as their values.

To fetch a Rotated Secret value run the following command:

akeyless get-rotated-secret-value -name <Rotated secret name>

{
    "value":
    {
        "linked_hosts":
        {
            "server01.example:22":
            {
                "username": "ubuntu",
                "password": "zjdd#WM0aOay"
            },
            "server02.example:22":
            {
                "username": "ubuntu",
                "password": "zjdd#WM3a2ax"
            }
        }
    }
}

Where you can filter the exact host using --host <host> as part of the get-rotated-secret-value command. For example:

akeyless get-rotated-secret-value -n <Rotated secret name> --host server02.example:22
{
  "value": {
    "username": "ubuntu",
    "password": "2fWpffSgke#M"
  }
}

Rotation Policy

Rotation across multiple hosts will work on a best-effort approach to rotate at least one host from the given hosts' list. After successful rotation across all hosts, the rotation status will be RotationSucceeded. Upon a failure in one or more hosts, the rotation status will be RotationPartialSucceeded. In case of failure on all hosts, the rotation status will be RotationFailed. Each of those results will trigger events in the Event Center.

In case of failure on one or more hosts, the Rotated Secret item will keep the old password on the hosts which ended with an error, when working with rotator type target the old password will be saved as an old version in the Parent Target.

The Akeyless best practice flow is to generate different passwords for each Local user. You can set an identical password for all users by using the flagsame-password true.