Managing Infrastructure Access
with Operator Access Control
Learn how to create, assign, approve, revoke, and control other
infrastructure access operations on Oracle Cloud@Customer Exadata infrastructure and
Compute Cloud@Customer infrastructure.
Create Operator Control To create an Operator Control using the Oracle Cloud Console, you open the console in a browser, select Create Operator Control, and specify the compartment, user, and permissions that you want to grant.
Assign Operator Control To assign policies to control human access to infrastructures and databases, complete this procedure.
Enable Notifications Learn to enable notifications for approvers when an access request is raised.
Edit Operator Control To change the compartment, user, permissions, and other control settings for an Operator Control, you can use the Edit Operator Control option.
Remove Operator Control The contents of the Operator Controls are visible even after you remove them. However, you cannot edit or assign them again.
Add Tags to Operator Control If you want to make an Operator Control easier to find, or to track resources used for specific purposes, you can add tags.
Remove Operator Control Assignment To remove an Operator Control assignment, complete this procedure on the system where you want to remove the assignment.
Filter Operator Control by Compartment To find Operator Controls specific to an individual compartment, you can use List Scope to filter Operator Controls by compartment.
Filter Operator Control by State Filter Operator Controls by selecting a state from the list of states of the operator control action.
To create an Operator Control using the Oracle Cloud Console, you open the
console in a browser, select Create Operator Control, and specify the
compartment, user, and permissions that you want to grant.
You specify operator controls to define operator attributes of Oracle operators
who can access your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure system, what access privileges they are
granted, and which users and groups on your compartment are empowered to grant or revoke
Oracle operator access to the infrastructure on which the compartment resides.
Before you can create an Operator Control, you must have an operator
attribute account that grants you privileges to create Operator Controls on the tenancy
and compartment that you want to manage, and you must have created administrative users
and groups on your compartment that have the privilege to grant or revoke access
requests for infrastructure maintenance.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
Click Create Operator Control.
The Create Operator Control
window opens.
In the Compartment field, select a
compartment where you want to create the Operator Control.
To
find the compartment in the tenancy, you can search for a string in the
compartment name. For example, if there are three compartments in the
tenancy with Dbaas-region in the compartment name, then
entering the search phrase "DBaaS-region" returns all three
of those compartments.
In the Operator Control Name field, enter an
Operator Control name to which you want to grant access to your compartment. For
the Description field that is associated with that Operator Control name,
provide information that explains the purpose of this control, and other access
information that you require for regulatory compliance.
In the Resource Type section, choose
resource type: Exadata Infrastructure,
Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster, or Compute
Infrastructure.
In the Deployment Platform section, you can
select either Cloud@Customer or Oracle Cloud if you have chosen
the resource type Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster. If you have chosen
Exadata Infrastructure or Compute Infrastructure as the resource
type, then Cloud@Customer is the only option available.
In the Approval Requirements section, provide
information regarding the access control that you want to grant to the
operator:
Choose Pre-Approval Mode: Select one of the
following:
PRE-APPROVE ALL ACTIONS
Select this mode to auto-approve access requests to Oracle
operators to perform system maintenance operations. You can
revoke this approval mode at any time.
SELECT ACTIONS TO
PRE-APPROVE Select this mode to choose
particular actions that you want to grant automatically. If you
select this option, then the Pre-Approved Actions list appears.
To view and select actions from the Pre-Approved Actions list,
click the arrow keys on the right side of the field, and select
the actions that you want to approve. Note that each operator
action has a risk profile associated with it, which informs you
if your system can encounter a performance impact during a
maintenance operation.
Requires Second approval: Choose Yes if you want a second approval for the Access Request using this Operator Control.
Note
A banner is displayed on the Access Request details page indicating that this Access Request requires 2 approvals to move to the Approved state.
A banner is displayed if there are any pending approvals.
If any of the two users reject the Access Request, then the Access Request is moved to the Rejected state.
If one user approves the Access Request now (Approve Now) and the other user approves it for later (Approve Later), then Approve Later takes precedence.
In the field Groups allowed to approve access to resources
governed by this Operator Control, click the arrow keys on
the right side of the field to add groups whose members you want to be able
to approve or revoke Oracle operator maintenance requests on your system.
Approval groups are not compatible with Identity Domains.
Select Use IAM Policy to permit the
Operator Access Control service to authorize users based on IAM Policy rules
to approve any access requests. You must select USE IAM Policy to support
Identity Domains.
Prior to choosing the Use IAM Policy option, you must
have written a policy to grant approval permissions to access requests for
the groups in different identity domains.
(Optional) In the field Message to Operator,
you can choose to enter a message that is displayed to the Oracle operator at
the time of an access request. Use this option to provide information to the
Oracle operator. For example, you can specify that an Oracle operator must
perform an action before an access request is approved, or perform an action
before beginning a pre-approved operation.
(Optional) To specify additional features, select Show
Advanced Options. In the Tag Namespace
field, consider adding a tag namespace (an identifying
text string applied to a set of compartments), or tagging the control with an
existing tag namespace.
When you have completed and reviewed your selections, click
Create. The Operator Control is created.
Save as Stack:
Stack is a collection of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources corresponding to a given Terraform configuration. Each stack resides in the compartment you specify, in a single region; however, resources on a given stack can be deployed across multiple regions. For more information, see stack.
While creating Operator Control, you can save resource configuration as a stack. Use the stack to configure and manage the resource through the Resource Manager service. For requirements and recommendations for Terraform configurations used with Resource Manager, seeResource Manager.
To view the details of an Operator Control, use this procedure.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the Operator Control that
you want to edit.
In the Operator Control Information section,
you can verify the Resource Type for which you have
created the Operator Control.
You can also verify if
notifications have been configured or not in the Notifications
Information section. If you have not configured
notifications, then a warning banner is displayed.
Click Configure.
Configure notifications dialog
is displayed.
In the Configure notifications dialog, enter
valid email addresses, and then click
Create.
To validate the Operator Control assignment, use this procedure.
Assignment validation performs the following actions:
Validates Syslog connectivity if Syslog is configured.
Checks for the maintenance window.
Creates a test access request for the assigned resource and runs a set of test commands on it. Additionally, you will be able to validate the approval workflow. Also, you can verify if you received a notification when the test access request was created. This helps you verify the Notifications setup.
Closes the test access request created earlier upon the successful run of the test commands. And, you will be able to download the audit log report for the test access request.
Displays whether the assignment validation has succeeded or failed with an appropriate message
During this process, a test access request is created with a default action based on the resource type. You can also have an option to choose a different action.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
Click Assignments.
In the list of Assignments, find the assignment you want to run assignment validation.
On the Assignment details page, click the Assignment validation tab.
The Assignment validation and Stages Completed sections include details of the assignment validation run.
Click Run assignment validation.
On the Run assignment validation dialog, select an action.
Operator Access Control creates a cage for the action selected.
Click Run assignment validation.
Upon clicking Run assignment validation, Operator Access Control will prompt you to approve the access request.
Click the link on the banner and approve the access request.
Upon completing assignment validation, Operator Access Control displays an appropriate message indicating whether the assignment validation has succeeded or failed.
To assign policies to control human access to infrastructures and databases,
complete this procedure.
Note
Ensure that the person or entity
doing the assignment has the privilege to use the Exadata infrastructures. If not,
then create the following IAM
policy:
use exadata-infrastructures in tenancy or compartment
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the Operator
Control that you want to assign.
In the Operator Control details page, click Assign
Operator Control.
Under Assignment Compartment, select the
compartment where you want the assignment resource to reside.
The Operator Control Information section
displays the name and OCID of the Operator Control and the Resource Type and
Deployment Platform for which this Operator Control was created. Based on the
Resource Type, the corresponding resources are listed for selection in the
Assignment Information section.
In the Assign Operator Control
page, under Assignment Information, make the following
selections:
Select an Exadata Cloud@Customer system in the compartment.
If the Exadata Cloud@Customer system is not in the current compartment,
then click Change Compartment to choose the
compartment where the Exadata Cloud@Customer system resides.
Choose the duration for which you want to assign the
operator control access:
(Default) ALWAYS ASSIGNED -
Operator Control is assigned to the system
indefinitely.
Note
You must assign at least one Operator
Control to the Exadata Cloud@Customer system
indefinitely.
ASSIGNED FOR A SPECIFIED
DURATION - Operator Control is assigned to the
system for a specific period.
From the calendar
controls, select the time period in which you want to assign
the access.
Note
You can assign an Operator Control for
a specific duration only when you have assigned at least one
Operator Control to the Exadata Cloud@Customer system
indefinitely (ALWAYS
ASSIGNED).
(Optional) In the DESCRIPTION field, enter a
description of the operator control access.
(Optional) In the Audit Log Forwarding section enter the following
details.
Note
Audit Log
forwarding is available only when you choose the ALWAYS
ASSIGNED option.
Select the Forward audit logs check
box.
Slide the toggle button Include hypervisor logs to enable forwarding hypervisor logs to the Syslog server. This option is applicable only if you have created the Operator Access Control with the resource type set to Exadata Infrastructure.
Slide the toggle button Include Autonomous VM cluster Syslog to enable forwarding logs from the /var/log/messages and /var/log/audit/audit.log files to the Syslog server. This option is applicable only if you have created the Operator Access Control with the resource type set to Autonomous Exadata VM Cluster.
Enter the IP address or hostname of the Syslog server in the
Syslog server address (IP or host)
field.
Enter the port number in the Syslog server
port field.
(Optional) Choose a certificate authority (CA) certificate
file, or paste the content of the certificate file.
Note
If the certificate is
not provided, then the Syslog server should offer a well-known certificate
for communication.
Select the Auto-approve access requests during the maintenance window check box.
While Exadata Cloud@Customer infrastructure is being patched, there may be a delay in approving your access request. Selecting this option helps you get automatic approval during Exadata Cloud@Customer scheduled maintenance window.
When Oracle Cloud Operations raise an access request, Operator Access Control needs to check if the infrastructure is in maintenance mode or not to auto-approve the request.
To fetch the current lifecycle state of the infrastructure, create the following policy:
allow any-user to inspect exadata-infrastructures in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
To fetch the current lifecycle state of Autonomous VM Clusters for Cloud@Customer, create the following policies:
allow any-user to inspect autonomous-vmclusters in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
allow any-user to inspect autonomous-container-databases in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
To fetch the current lifecycle state of Autonomous VM Cluster for Public Cloud, create the following policies:
allow any-user to inspect cloud-autonomous-vmclusters in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
allow any-user to inspect autonomous-container-databases in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
To fetch the current lifecycle state of the Compute Cloud@Customer infrastructure, create the following policy:
allow any-user to inspect ccc-infrastructures in tenancy where ALL { request.principal.type='opctloperatorcontrol' }
Click
Assign. The assignment is listed on the compartment
assignment list.
While the assignment is pending, the console
displays the state of the assignment as Updating.
When the operator is assigned to the access request, the state changes to
Accepted, or Assigned
Failed. If there is an issue with the access request, then a
circle with an exclamation point
(!)
is displayed next to the assignment state. Click the icon to display details
about the issue, and contact Oracle Support.
Learn to enable notifications for approvers when an access request is
raised.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click
Operator Access Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the Operator Control that you
want to edit.
In the Notification Information section, click
Configure.
In the Configure Notifications page, enter valid
email IDs and then click Create.
Operator
Access Control service initiates a call to Notifications Service and Events
Service to create Topic, Subscriptions, and Events. When they are being created,
you will see an intermittent state of the notification creation process. When
the configuration is complete, you will see a message stating that the
notification has been created.
By default, the Operator Access Control system sets up event notifications for the
following events:
Access Request Created
Access Request Approved
Access Request Expired
You can manually update events or notifications settings any time later. Follow the steps
outlined in the following topics to manually configure notifications.
To change the compartment, user, permissions, and other control settings for
an Operator Control, you can use the Edit Operator Control option.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click
Operator Access Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the
Operator Control that you want to edit.
In the Operator Control details page, click Edit Operator
Control.
In the Edit Operator Control page,
you can edit the following:
Enter a name in the OPERATOR CONTROL
field.
Enter descriptive text in the
DESCRIPTION field.
You cannot change the Resource Type
and Deployment Platform after creating an
Operator Control.
CHOOSE PRE-APPROVAL MODE: Select
one of the following:
PRE-APPROVE ALL ACTIONS
Select this mode to automatically approve all access
requests from Oracle operators to perform system maintenance
operations.
You can revoke this approval mode at any
time.
SELECT ACTIONS TO
PRE-APPROVE Select this mode to choose
particular actions for which you want to grant operator
access automatically.
If you select this option, then the Pre-Approved Actions list
appears. To view and select actions from the Pre-Approved Actions list, click
the arrow keys on the right side of the field, and select
the actions that you want to approve.
Note that each operator action has a risk
profile associated with it, which informs you if your system
can encounter a performance impact during a maintenance
operation.
Note
Under List Scope, you can select the compartment to which the control applies.
Requires Second approval: Choose Yes if you want a second approval for the Access Request using this Operator Control.
Note
A banner is displayed on the Access Request details page indicating that this Access Request requires 2 approvals to move to the Approved state.
A banner is displayed if there are any pending approvals.
If any of the two users reject the Access Request, then the Access Request is moved to the Rejected state.
If one user approves the Access Request now (Approve Now) and the other user approves it for later (Approve Later), then Approve Later takes precedence.
In the field Groups allowed to approve access to
resources governed by this Operator Control, click the
arrow keys on the right side of the field to add groups whose members
you want to be able to approve or revoke Oracle operator maintenance
requests on your system.
(Optional) In the field Message to Operator, you can choose to enter a message that is displayed to the Oracle operator at the time that the operator is engaged with an access request.
Use this option to provide information to the Oracle operator. For example, you can specify that an Oracle operator must perform an action before an access request is approved, or perform an action before beginning a preapproved operation.
If you want to make an Operator Control easier to find, or to track
resources used for specific purposes, you can add tags.
Applying tags to resources is optional. If you have permissions to
create a resource, then you also have permissions to apply free-form tags to that
resource. To apply a defined tag, you must have permissions to use the tag namespace.
For more information about tagging, see Resource Tags. If you are not sure if you
should apply tags, then skip this option (you can apply tags later), or ask your
administrator.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, select the operator control for
which you want to add tags.
In the Operator Control details page, click Add
Tags.
To change the duration of an Operator Control assignment, edit the Operator
Control configuration.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click
Operator Access Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the Operator
Control for which you want to update the assignment.
In the Operator Control details page, under
Assignments, find the assignment that you want to
update, click the actions button (three dots), and then select Update
Assignment.
In the Update Operator Control
Assignment page, you can choose an assignment from one of the
following options:
(Default) ALWAYS ASSIGNED - Operator
Control is assigned to the system indefinitely.
Note
You must assign at
least one Operator Control to the Exadata Cloud@Customer system
indefinitely.
ASSIGNED FOR A SPECIFIED DURATION -
Operator Control is assigned to the system for a specific period.
From the calendar controls, select the time period for
the access.
Note
You can assign an Operator Control for a specific duration only
when you have assigned at least one Operator Control to the Exadata
Cloud@Customer system indefinitely (ALWAYS
ASSIGNED).
(Optional) In the DESCRIPTION field,
enter a description describing the purpose for the access control, or
reason for changing it.
(Optional) In the Audit Log Forwarding section enter the following details.
Note
Audit logs and Hypervisor logs can be forwarded only when ALWAYS ASSIGNED is selected.
Select the Audit logs checkbox to forward audit logs.
Select the Hypervisor logs checkbox to forward hypervisor logs. Hypervisor logs provide you the information about the activity that is happening on your hypervisor hosts.
Enter the IP address or hostname of the Syslog server in the Syslog server address (IP or host) field.
Enter the port number in the Syslog server port field.
(Optional) Choose a certificate authority (CA) certificate file, or paste the content of the certificate file.
Note
If the certificate is not provided, then the Syslog server should offer a well-known certificate for communication.
To remove an Operator Control assignment, complete this procedure on the
system where you want to remove the assignment.
Caution:
After you remove an Operator Control assignment, the system may be
fully accessible to Oracle operators. If you want to continue to maintain more
direct control, then consider updating operator controls.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click
Operator Access Control.
From the list of Operator Controls, click the name of the
Operator Control for which you want to update the assignment.
In the Operator Control details page, under
Assignments, for the assignment that you want to
update, click Actions, and then select Remove
Assignment.
In the Remove Operator Control
Assignment dialog, type the word REMOVE to
confirm your choice.
Move Operator Control Assignment to Another
Compartment 🔗
To relocate an Operator Control Assignment to another compartment, use this
procedure.
Moving an Operator Control Assignment to a different compartment will not affect
associated resources. They remain in their current compartments.
Log in to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tenancy.
Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle
Database, click Operator Access
Control.
Click Assignments.
In the list of Operator Control Assignments, click the Actions icon
(three dots) for the Operator Control that you want to move, and then click
Move Resource.
In the Move Resource to a Different
Compartment dialog, choose a new compartment, and then click
Move Resource.