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Boundary
Boundary Enterprise

Boundary Enterprise deployment guide

  • 15min
  • |
  • Enterprise
  • Boundary

This deployment guide outlines the required steps to manually install and configure a single HashiCorp Boundary cluster as defined in the Boundary Enterprise Reference Architecture on virtual machines (VMs) or bare-metal servers running a Debian or RedHat-based Linux distribution.

This guide includes general patterns as well as specific recommendations for popular cloud infrastructure platforms. These recommendations have also been encoded into official Terraform reference architectures for AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Install Boundary

Pre-built Boundary packages are available from the HashiCorp Linux Repository. In addition to the installing the Boundary binary, the official package also provides a systemd service unit, and a local boundary user account under which the service runs.

The following installation steps must be completed for each Boundary controller and worker node that you want to deploy. The binary operates as either a worker or controller, depending on the subsequent configuration that is generated for the Boundary binary.

The steps vary by Linux distribution. Select your distribution and complete the steps to install Boundary:

Use the following command to add the HashiCorp GPC key as a trusted package-signing key:

$ curl -fsSL https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Add the official HashiCorp Linux repository:

$ sudo apt-add-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main"

Update the package index:

$ sudo apt update

Install Boundary:

$ sudo apt install boundary-enterprise

Note

To install Boundary Community Edition, replace boundary-enterprise with boundary.

Configure Boundary controllers

Refer to the following sections for more information about configuring Boundary controllers:

Prepare TLS certificates

HashiCorp recommends that the Boundary controller nodes handle TLS via (Public Key Infrastructure) for user connections. Further, we strongly recommend that you use certificates that are generated and signed by an appropriate certificate authority (CA).

You must have two files for using TLS on each Boundary controller node. You may have to create a new directory to store the certificate material at /etc/boundary.d/tls. Place the files in the following paths:

If you do not generate unique TLS key material for each node, you should securely distribute the key material to each of the Boundary controller nodes.

Prepare KMS keys

Boundary controllers require the following two different cryptographic keys to operate:

  • Root Key: The root KMS key acts as a KEK (Key Encrypting Key) for the scope-specific KEKs (also referred to as the scope’s root key). The scope’s root KEK and the various DEKs (Data Encryption Keys) are created when a scope is created. The DEKs are encrypted with the scope’s root KEK, and this is in turn encrypted with the KMS key marked for the root purpose.
  • Recovery Key: The recovery KMS is used for rescue/recovery operations that can be used by a client to authenticate almost any Boundary operation. A nonce and creation time are included as an encrypted payload, formatted as a token and sent to the controller. The time and nonce are used to ensure that a value cannot be replayed by an adversary, and also to ensure that each operation must be individually authenticated by a client so that revoking access to the KMS has an immediate result.

The following key is optional:

  • Worker-Auth Key: (optional) The worker-auth key is shared by the controller and worker in order to authenticate a worker to the controller. If a worker is used with an authentication token, this is unnecessary.

There are other optional KMS keys that can be configured for different encryption scenarios. These scenarios include Boundary worker auth token encryption and Boundary worker or controller config encryption. Refer to Data security in Boundary for further information.

Note

There are three methods for authorizing Boundary workers: controller-led, worker-led, and KMS-led. Controller-led and worker-led methods use an auth token exchange to authenticate with the controllers. KMS-led uses a user-provided KMS key that can be used for authentication by both the worker and the controller. In this example, the KMS-led method is used to provide an AWS KMS auth key to enable worker authentication.

HashiCorp strongly recommends using either Vault Transit, or the key management system for whatever cloud provider where you deploy your Boundary controllers. Refer to the following documentation for more information:

After you create the keys in Vault or the key management system of your choice, you can prepare the PostgreSQL database.

Prepare the database

Boundary manages its state and configuration in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), namely PostgreSQL. You should create, set up, and make the PostgreSQL database accessible to the Boundary controller nodes before you configure the nodes themselves.

Refer to the enterprise reference architecture documentation for examples of cloud managed PostgreSQL databases.

Create controller configuration

At this point, the assumption is that you have completed the following steps:

  • Prepared at least three virtual machines with Boundary installed
  • Prepared at least one set of TLS certificate and key to distribute to the virtual machines for TLS communication
  • Prepared the KMS keys that you’ll use for at least root and recovery operations
  • Prepared a PostgreSQL database that you’ll use to manage configuration and state

You must complete the following controller configuration for each of the Boundary controller nodes.

Base controller configuration

The core required values for a Boundary controller configuration include the following:

  • listener blocks for api, cluster, and ops
  • A kms block
  • disable_mlock
  • A controller block

Installing Boundary from the HashiCorp Linux Repository installs some example configuration files under /etc/boundary.d/ which you will replace in the following steps.

Use the following commands to rename the existing configuration files.

$ sudo mv boundary.hcl boundary.hcl.old

$ sudo mv controller.hcl controller.hcl.old

$ sudo mv worker.hcl worker.hcl.old

We recommend using either the env:// or file:// notation within the configuration files to securely provide secret configuration components to the Boundary controller binaries. In the following controller configuration example, we use env:// to declare the PostgreSQL connection string, as well as secure the AWS KMS configuration items.

When you install the Boundary binary using a package manager, it includes a unit file that configures an environment file at /etc/boundary.d/boundary.env. We will use this file to set the sensitive values that are used to configure the Boundary controllers and workers. The following file is an example of how this environment file could be configured:

/etc/boundary.d/boundary.env
POSTGRESQL_CONNECTION_STRING=postgresql://boundary:boundary@postgres.yourdomain.com:5432/boundary
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Note

In the example above, the proper IAM roles and permissions for the given AWS_ACCESS_KEY and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY must be in place for Boundary to use them to access the different KMS keys.

Next, populate the controller.hcl file with any relevant configuration information. The following example configuration file is a good starting point for a production Boundary controller installation. It defines the three listener blocks, two unique kms blocks that are specific to AWS (as an example), the disable_mlock value, and the controller block.

/etc/boundary.d/controller.hcl
# disable memory from being swapped to disk
disable_mlock = true

# API listener configuration block
listener "tcp" {
  # Should be the address of the NIC that the controller server will be reached on
  # Use 0.0.0.0 to listen on all interfaces
  address = "0.0.0.0:9200"
  # The purpose of this listener block
  purpose = "api"

  # TLS Configuration
  tls_disable   = false
  tls_cert_file = "/etc/boundary.d/tls/boundary-cert.pem"
  tls_key_file  = "/etc/boundary.d/tls/boundary-key.pem"

  # Uncomment to enable CORS for the Admin UI. Be sure to set the allowed origin(s)
  # to appropriate values.
  #cors_enabled = true
  #cors_allowed_origins = ["https://yourcorp.yourdomain.com", "serve://boundary"]
}

# Data-plane listener configuration block (used for worker coordination)
listener "tcp" {
  # Should be the IP of the NIC that the worker will connect on
  address = "0.0.0.0:9201"
  # The purpose of this listener
  purpose = "cluster"
}

# Ops listener for operations like health checks for load balancers
listener "tcp" {
  # Should be the address of the interface where your external systems'
  # (eg: Load-Balancer and metrics collectors) will connect on.
  address = "0.0.0.0:9203"
  # The purpose of this listener block
  purpose = "ops"

  tls_disable   = false
  tls_cert_file = "/etc/boundary.d/tls/boundary-cert.pem"
  tls_key_file  = "/etc/boundary.d/tls/boundary-key.pem"
}

# Controller configuration block
controller {
  # This name attr must be unique across all controller instances if running in HA mode
  name = "boundary-controller-1"
  description = "Boundary controller number one"

  # This is the public hostname or IP where the workers can reach the
  # controller. This should typically be a load balancer address
  public_cluster_addr = "example-cluster-lb.example.com"

  # Enterprise license file, can also be the raw value or env:// value
  license = "file:///path/to/license/file.hclic"

  # After receiving a shutdown signal, Boundary will wait 10s before initiating the shutdown process.
  graceful_shutdown_wait_duration = "10s"

  # Database URL for postgres. This is set in boundary.env and
  #consumed via the “env://” notation.
  database {
      url = "env://POSTGRESQL_CONNECTION_STRING"
  }
}

# Events (logging) configuration. This
# configures logging for ALL events to both
# stderr and a file at /var/log/boundary/controller.log
events {
  audit_enabled       = true
  sysevents_enabled   = true
  observations_enable = true
  sink "stderr" {
    name = "all-events"
    description = "All events sent to stderr"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
  }
  sink {
    name = "file-sink"
    description = "All events sent to a file"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
    file {
      path = "/var/log/boundary"
      file_name = "controller.log"
    }
    audit_config {
      audit_filter_overrides {
        sensitive = "redact"
        secret    = "redact"
      }
    }
  }
}

# Root KMS Key (managed by AWS KMS in this example)
# Keep in mind that sensitive values are provided via ENV VARS
# in this example, such as access_key and secret_key
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "root"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

# Recovery KMS Key
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "recovery"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey2"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

# Worker-Auth KMS Key (optional, only needed if using
# KMS authenticated workers)
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "worker-auth"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey3"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

Parameter explanation

  • disable_mlock (bool: false) – Disables the server from executing the mlock syscall, which prevents memory from being swapped to the disk. This is fine for local development and testing. However, it is not recommended for production unless the systems running Boundary use only encrypted swap or do not use swap at all. Boundary only supports memory locking on UNIX-like systems that support mlock() syscall (Linux, FreeBSD, etc.).

    On Linux, to give the Boundary executable the ability to use mlock syscall without running the process as root, execute the following command::

    $ sudo setcap cap_ipc_lock=+ep $(readlink -f $(which boundary))

    If you use a Linux distribution with a modern version of systemd, you can add the following directive to the "[Service]" configuration section:

    LimitMEMLOCK=infinity

  • listener: Configures the listeners on which Boundary serves traffic (API, cluster, and proxy).

  • controller: Configures the controller. If present, boundary server will start a Controller subprocess.

  • events: Configures Boundary events-specific parameters.

    Note

    The example events configuration above is exhaustive and writes all events to both stderr and a file. This configuration may or may not work for your organization’s logging solution.

  • kms: Configures KMS blocks for various purposes.

The recovery block specifies the key used to "recover" Boundary, but you can also use it to authenticate to Boundary and manage it as a "global" super user. This allows you to authenticate from the CLI or from Terraform in order to manage Boundary on first run. This key is utilized later to set up basic administrative accounts.

Refer to the links below for configuration information for the different cloud KMS blocks:

Refer to the documentation for additional top-level configuration options and additional Boundary controller-specific options.

Set logging permissions

To ensure the boundary process has rights to write to the log destination, create the logging directory and set write-access permissions:

$ mkdir /var/log/boundary

$ sudo chmod +rw /var/log/boundary

If setting the boundary service to run under a specific user and group, change the ownership of the log directory.

For example, if running the boundary service under the boundary user and and boundary group:

$ sudo chown boundary:boundary /var/log/boundary

Initialize the database

Before you can start Boundary, you must initialize the database from one Boundary controller. This operation is only required once which will execute the required database migrations for the Boundary cluster to operate.The following command with the included flags will create initial resources within Boundary as an example. For finer control over these resources, remove the flags. Execute the following command to initialize the Boundary database:

$ boundary database init \
   -skip-auth-method-creation \
   -skip-host-resources-creation \
   -skip-scopes-creation \
   -skip-target-creation \
   -config /etc/boundary.d/controller.hcl

You can use the help output for the init command to view the flags available to skip the creation of any auto-generated resources:

$ boundary database init -h

Start the Boundary service

When the configuration files are in place on each Boundary controller, you can proceed to enable and start the binary via systemd on each of the Boundary controller nodes using the following commands:

$ sudo systemctl enable boundary

$ sudo systemctl start boundary

Authenticate using a KMS recovery key

To authenticate to a new Boundary installation, we recommend configuring a KMS recovery key, as outlined in the Base controller configuration section. This key can be used to manage a new Boundary installation.

Below are examples of authenticating to a new Boundary installation using the CLI or Terraform.

To use the recovery workflow on the CLI, you must pass the -recovery-config <path_to_kms_recovery_config> flag or set the environment variable for BOUNDARY_RECOVERY_CONFIG for every command ran. Authentication takes place for every command ran when using the recovery workflow, there is no boundary authenticate step:

$ cat << EOF > /tmp/recovery.hcl
kms "aead" {
        purpose   = "recovery"
        region     = "us-east-1"
        kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey2"
        endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}
EOF

Now, you can create a user by passing the recovery key via the recovery-config option:

$ boundary users create <truncated> -recovery-config /tmp/recovery.hcl

Upon logging in to Boundary for the first time, HashiCorp recommends creating an admin user for the global and project level scopes to manage Boundary. This will allow our user to configure targets within those scopes and manage them.

Refer to the Creating your first login account documentation to learn about setting up your first auth method, user, account, and role to login to Boundary going forward without the recovery KMS workflow.

Configure Boundary workers

For the purposes of this guide, we will follow an opinionated deployment model in order to demonstrate additional Boundary Enterprise features such as multi-hop sessions.

At this point, the assumption is that you have completed the following steps:

  • Installed Boundary on at least three controller nodes. Refer to the previous section Configure Boundary controllers.
  • Prepared (or use existing) three network boundaries:
    • Public/DMZ network
    • Intermediary network
    • Private network
  • Prepared three virtual machines for Boundary workers, one in each network boundary with the Boundary binary installed.

In the following three configuration files (one for each worker in a unique network boundary), there are common configuration components as well as some unique components depending on the role the Boundary worker performs. In a multi-hop configuration, the Boundary workers can serve one of three purposes: an ingress worker, an ingress/egress worker, and an egress worker.

Prepare an environment file

To securely provide secret configuration components to the Boundary worker binaries, HashiCorp recommends using either the env:// or file:// notation within the configuration files. In the following controller configuration example we will use env:// to secure AWS KMS configuration items.

When you install the Boundary binary using a package manager, it includes a unit file which configures an environment file at /etc/boundar.d/boundary.env. This file is used to set sensitive values that configure the Boundary workers. The following is an example of configuring this environment file:

/etc/boundary.d/boundary.env
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

Note

In the example above the proper IAM roles and permissions for the given AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY must be in place to allow Boundary access to the different KMS keys.

Prepare worker KMS keys

The worker-auth-storage KMS key is used by a worker for the encrypted storage of authentication keys. This is recommended for workers. If it is not specified, the authentication keys are not encrypted on disk. Optionally, if you deploy KMS authentication-drive Boundary workers, an additional KMS key must be generated to authenticate the Boundary worker with the controller.

HashiCorp strongly recommends using the Key Management System of the cloud provider where you deploy your Boundary workers. Keep in mind that Boundary workers must have the correct level of permissions for interacting with the cloud provider’s KMS.

Refer to the following pages for more information about the cloud provider’s KMS:

After you create the requisite key(s) in the cloud provider of your choice, you can begin configuring the workers.

The following configuration examples all employ the auth token method of authentication with a worker-led authorization flow. For more information on configuring authentication for Boundary workers, refer to the worker configuration documentation.

Ingress worker configuration

Create the ingress-worker.hcl file with the relevant configuration information:

/etc/boundary.d/ingress-worker.hcl
# disable memory from being swapped to disk
disable_mlock = true

# listener denoting this is a worker proxy
listener "tcp" {
  address = "0.0.0.0:9202"
  purpose = "proxy"
}

# worker block for configuring the specifics of the
# worker service
worker {
  public_addr = "<worker_public_addr>"
  initial_upstreams = ["<controller_lb_address>:9201"]
  auth_storage_path = "/var/lib/boundary"
  tags {
    type = ["worker1", "upstream"]
  }
}

# Events (logging) configuration. This
# configures logging for ALL events to both
# stderr and a file at /var/log/boundary/<boundary_use>.log
events {
  audit_enabled       = true
  sysevents_enabled   = true
  observations_enable = true
  sink "stderr" {
    name = "all-events"
    description = "All events sent to stderr"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
  }
  sink {
    name = "file-sink"
    description = "All events sent to a file"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
    file {
      path = "/var/log/boundary"
      file_name = "ingress-worker.log"
    }
    audit_config {
      audit_filter_overrides {
        sensitive = "redact"
        secret    = "redact"
      }
    }
  }
}

# kms block for encrypting the authentication material
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "worker-auth-storage"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey3"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

Intermediate worker configuration

Create the intermediate-worker.hcl file with the relevant configuration information:

/etc/boundary.d/intermediate-worker.hcl
# disable memory from being swapped to disk
disable_mlock = true

# listener denoting this is a worker proxy
listener "tcp" {
  address = "0.0.0.0:9202"
  purpose = "proxy"
}

# worker block for configuring the specifics of the
# worker service
worker {
  public_addr = "<worker_public_addr>"
  initial_upstreams = ["<ingress_worker_address>:9202"]
  auth_storage_path = "/var/lib/boundary"
  tags {
    type = ["worker2", "intermediate"]
  }
}

# Events (logging) configuration. This
# configures logging for ALL events to both
# stderr and a file at /var/log/boundary/<boundary_use>.log
events {
  audit_enabled       = true
  sysevents_enabled   = true
  observations_enable = true
  sink "stderr" {
    name = "all-events"
    description = "All events sent to stderr"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
  }
  sink {
    name = "file-sink"
    description = "All events sent to a file"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
    file {
      path = "/var/log/boundary"
      file_name = "intermediate-worker.log"
    }
    audit_config {
      audit_filter_overrides {
        sensitive = "redact"
        secret    = "redact"
      }
    }
  }
}

# kms block for encrypting the authentication material
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "worker-auth-storage"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey4"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

Egress worker configuration

Create the egress-worker.hcl file with the relevant configuration information:

/etc/boundary.d/egress-worker.hcl
# disable memory from being swapped to disk
disable_mlock = true

# listener denoting this is a worker proxy
listener "tcp" {
  address = "0.0.0.0:9202"
  purpose = "proxy"
}

# worker block for configuring the specifics of the
# worker service
worker {
  public_addr = "<worker_public_addr>"
  initial_upstreams = ["<intermediate_worker_address>:9202"]
  auth_storage_path = "/var/lib/boundary"
  tags {
    type = ["worker3", "egress"]
  }
}

# Events (logging) configuration. This
# configures logging for ALL events to both
# stderr and a file at /var/log/boundary/<boundary_use>.log
events {
  audit_enabled       = true
  sysevents_enabled   = true
  observations_enable = true
  sink "stderr" {
    name = "all-events"
    description = "All events sent to stderr"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
  }
  sink {
    name = "file-sink"
    description = "All events sent to a file"
    event_types = ["*"]
    format = "cloudevents-json"
    file {
      path = "/var/log/boundary"
      file_name = "egress-worker.log"
    }
    audit_config {
      audit_filter_overrides {
        sensitive = "redact"
        secret    = "redact"
      }
    }
  }
}

# kms block for encrypting the authentication material
kms "awskms" {
  purpose    = "worker-auth-storage"
  region     = "us-east-1"
  kms_key_id = "19ec80b0-dfdd-4d97-8164-c6examplekey5"
  endpoint   = "https://vpce-0e1bb1852241f8cc6-pzi0do8n.kms.us-east-1.vpce.amazonaws.com"
}

Parameter explanation

  • disable_mlock (bool: false) – Disables the server from executing the mlock syscall, which prevents memory from being swapped to the disk. This is fine for local development and testing. However, it is not recommended for production unless the systems running Boundary use only encrypted swap or do not use swap at all. Boundary only supports memory locking on UNIX-like systems that support mlock() syscall (Linux, FreeBSD, etc.).

    On Linux, to give the Boundary executable the ability to use mlock syscall without running the process as root, execute the following command:

    $ sudo setcap cap_ipc_lock=+ep $(readlink -f $(which boundary))

    If you use a Linux distribution with a modern version of systemd, you can add the following directive to the “[Service]” configuration section:

    LimitMEMLOCK=infinity

  • listener: Configures the listeners on which Boundary serves traffic (API cluster and proxy).

  • worker: Configures the worker. If present, boundary server starts a worker subprocess.

  • events: Configures Boundary events-specific parameters.

    Note

    The example events configuration above is exhaustive and writes all events to both stderr and a file. This configuration may or may not work for your organization’s logging solution.

  • kms: Configures KMS blocks for various purposes.

Refer to the links below for configuration information for the different cloud KMS blocks:

Refer to the documentation for additional top-level configuration options and additional Boundary worker-specific options.

Start the Boundary service

When the configuration files are in place on each Boundary controller, you can proceed to enable and start the binary via systemd on each of the Boundary worker nodes using the following commands:

$ sudo systemctl enable boundary

$ sudo systemctl start boundary

Adopt the workers (optional)

If using workers as outlined above, follow the guide from this tutorial until the end (ignoring HCP nomenclature) in order to adopt the Boundary Workers.

If you use the workers as outlined above, follow the procedure to Register the worker with the control plane to adopt the Boundary workers. Even though this guide uses an HCP deployment, the steps are identical for registering workers.

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