Access Plane

Role-based access control for SSH and Kubernetes

Teleport RBAC lets your security team to manage access to computing infrastructure. RBAC works in conjunction with a single sign-on (SSO) against a central identity provider such as Okta, ADFS, or any other SAML provider.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Infrastructure

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is the practice of managing privileged access to infrastructure through a central directory of users, roles, and teams. Authorization is granted to groups (or roles) within a company directory. This allows individuals to access secured infrastructure by simply authenticating their identity, usually through a Single Sign-on (SSO) solution tied to the directory.

Teleport supports all major SSO providers, including Okta, Sailpoint, Active Directory, OneLogin, G Suite, Auth0 and many others.

Who can Benefit from RBAC?

Using RBAC instead of individually-managed authorization and authentication methods (such as SSH keys or VPN logins) means companies can now control user group permissions within their organization but also grant controlled and seamless access to third-party teams. This is useful for:

Company-wide compliance teams overseeing multiple infrastructure and engineering groups who use both Kubernetes and SSH.

Manage service providers (MSPs) that manage Kubernetes and generic server clusters for clients.

Remote support teams from software vendors who wish to manage remote on-site Kubernetes clusters.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) edge cloud management from a centralized location.

Meet Compliance Requirements

RBAC is used to secure the infrastructure and meet compliance requirements around privileged (SSH) access. Specifically, it enables security and systems engineers to enforce security and compliance policies such as:
Multi-factor authentication (MFA). Integrating with company-wide SSO enables two-factor authentication (2FA) for SSH sessions using the same access control plane, simplifying management and audit.
Enforce infrastructure and data compliance. Isolate production environments and production data from specific roles and teams, or limit access to certain roles and teams. Enforce policies like "Developers must never see production data with ease".
Compliant process for onboarding and transferring employees. Ensure privileged access permissions stay up-to-date as individuals switch roles or leave the company.
Prohibit root access for all roles. Teleport RBAC allows security administrators to remove the need to use root privileges. RBAC also separates SSH permissions management from server management.
Overall, the result of implementing RBAC is a reduction in operational overhead. Administrators can control (add, modify, and revoke) privileged access for teams or individuals from one place, while users can get access authorization without needing to manage SSH keys or VPN credentials.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Infrastructure

Who can Benefit from RBAC?

Meet Compliance Requirements

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