Identity & Access Management

Control panel

In Servercore, you can manage user access to the infrastructure. This is accomplished by using Identity and Access Management (IAM), which checks every request and ensures that only authorized users perform operations on resources.

User access rights to resources are set at the level of user types and roles. Only the Account Owner or users with the iam_admin role can add users and change their data and roles. To simplify user management, you can organize them into groups.

By default, two-factor authentication is enabled for all users after registration and profile completion two-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, you must enter your password and a one-time confirmation code to log in to your account. The confirmation code can be received via an authenticator app or the email address specified in your profile. Two-factor authentication can only be disabled by the Account Owner. We do not recommend disabling two-factor authentication to avoid risks associated with account compromise.

You can also set up authentication in the control panel using Single Sign-On (SSO). To do this, use identity federations — a centralized service for managing organizational structure, configuring integration with an employee directory, and controlling user access to company resources. When using federations, user data is stored with your identity provider — Identity Provider (e.g., Keycloak, ADFS, and other SAML-compliant providers).

By default, access to the control panel is allowed from any IP address. However, the Account Owner and a user with the iam.admin role can set restrictions — users will only be able to log in to the account from IP addresses and subnets that have been added to the allowlist.

Если необходимо with кем-то поделиться доступом к панели управления or к ресурсам, не передавайте свои данные. Владелец аккаунта and пользователь with ролью iam.admin могут создать дополнительного пользователя для доступа к панели управления or сервисного пользователя для программного доступа, подробнее in инструкции Управление доступом in продуктах Servercore

Cloud and dedicated servers

You can connect to cloud servers via the control panel console, and to dedicated servers via the KVM console. If you connect to a server using other CLI tools, to ensure secure remote access to your infrastructure, connect to the server:

• via the SSH protocol — if you have a server with Linux OS;
• or via the RDP protocol — if you have a server with Windows OS.

Configure SSH connection

For secure connection to a cloud or dedicated server running Linux, use SSH keys instead of a login and password. This is a key pair: a private key and a public key. The private key is stored on your local computer, and the public key is placed on the server. Once you have configured the SSH connection and disabled password access, only devices holding the private key will be able to connect to the server, protecting it against brute-force attacks.

For each administrator, you need to create an SSH key pair and place the public key on the cloud or dedicated server. When creating a key, provide a passphrase for additional security.

After creating SSH keys, create a user and configure the SSH connection — when creating a server using user data or for an existing server via the CLI. If you use servers with a public IP address, the safest strategy is to configure security settings at the server creation stage using user data.

User data

You can specify user data for a cloud and dedicated server.

Example of creating a user and configuring an SSH connection using user data for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 64-bit.

#cloud-config
users:
- name: admin
    sudo: ['ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL']
    groups: sudo
    shell: /bin/bash
    lock_passwd: true
    ssh_authorized_keys:
    - <<public_ssh_key> admin@test
ssh_pwauth: false

package_update: true

packages:
- ufw

runcmd:
- sed -i 's/^#Port 22/Port 2222/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
- sed -i 's/^#PasswordAuthentication yes/PasswordAuthentication no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
- sed -i 's/^PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/PermitRootLogin no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
- sed -i 's/^#PubkeyAuthentication yes/PubkeyAuthentication yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
- systemctl restart ssh
- ufw allow 2222/tcp
- ufw --force enable
- reboot

Where:

• name: admin — creates a user called admin;
• sudo: ['ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL'] — allows the user to run commands via sudo without a password prompt;
• groups: sudo — adds the user to the sudo`` group;
• lock_passwd: true — locks password login for the admin`` user;
• <public_ssh_key> admin@test in the ssh_authorized_keys section — adds the public SSH key you created earlier. It starts with ssh-rsa.
• ssh_pwauth: false — disables password login for all users. Access to the server will be possible only via SSH key, and password login will be completely disabled;
• package_update: true — updates the apt library;
• packages: ufw — installs the UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall), which is required to restrict access to the SSH port;
• commands with sed -i in the runcmd section — change the default port 22 to 2222, disable password login and root user connection, and enable key-based authentication.

CLI

Configuration example for a Linux OS with the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW) installed.

1. Open the CLI.

2. Create an admin: user:

   sudo useradd -m -G sudo -s /bin/bash admin

3. Create the .ssh directory in the home directory of the created user and go into it:

   mkdir /home/admin/.ssh
   cd /home/admin/.ssh

4. Create the authorized_keys: file:

   touch authorized_keys

5. Add the public SSH key to the authorized_keys file:

   echo <public_ssh_key> >> /home/admin/.ssh/authorized_keys

   Specify <public_ssh_key> — the public SSH key you created earlier. It starts with ssh-rsa.

6. Configure access rights:

   chown admin:admin /home/admin/.ssh
   chown admin:admin /home/admin/.ssh/authorized_keys
   chmod 700 /home/admin/.ssh
   chmod 600 /home/admin/.ssh/authorized_keys

7. In the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, configure the SSH connection and disable password access:

   vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
   PasswordAuthentication no
   PubkeyAuthentication yes
   PermitRootLogin no
   Port 2222

   Where:

   • PasswordAuthentication no — disables password authentication;
   • PubkeyAuthentication yes — enables key-based authentication;
   • PermitRootLogin no — denies SSH access for the root user;
   • Port 2222 — changes the default SSH port 22 to port 2222.

8. Restart the SSH service for the changes to take effect:

   systemctl restart ssh

9. For the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW), add a rule that allows the new port to be used for SSH connections:

   ufw allow 2222/tcp

10. Start the firewall, enable automatic firewall startup, and apply all rules — for example, for the UFW firewall:

    ufw --force enable

11. Restart the server.

Recommendations for using RDP connections

To securely connect via RDP to a cloud or dedicated server running Windows, do not use a public IP address. We recommend using a VPN for access to such servers, for example, OpenVPN, WireGuard, or IKEv2/IPsec. To do this, place cloud and dedicated servers in private subnets that are accessible via a separate VPN gateway, or deploy a VPN gateway on the same server.

Use a separate account for each server administrator.

Additional security tools

To protect servers from unauthorized access, we recommend using additional security tools. Examples of free tools:

• Fail2Ban;
• Penalties in OpenSSH;
• CrowdSec.

Two-factor authentication

To protect your services from unauthorized access, we recommend using two-factor authentication for additional user identity verification. The service is provided as licenses for using the Multifactor solution.

The Multifactor solution complies with regulatory requirements:

• is included in the Unified Register of Russian Software (No. 7046);
• complies with the international PCI DSS standard;
• has an FSTEC certificate (No. 5039).

Managed Kubernetes

In a Managed Kubernetes cluster, you can manage access to virtual resources using RBAC Authorization (RBAC). RBAC allows you to assign user roles — create different namespaces for different applications and configure user access to pods in the corresponding namespace.

Managed databases

For all Managed Databases except Redis, you can manage database users and their privileges. Learn more about user management in the instructions for PostgreSQL, PostgreSQL for 1C, PostgreSQL TimescaleDB, MySQL semi-sync, MySQL sync and Kafka.

For Redis databases, one user is created automatically. The password for this user is set when creating the cluster, and you can change it after the cluster is created.

S3

Access to S3 resources is regulated by:

• role-based access control — defines access within the account and project;
• Bucket Policy - defines access within the bucket.

When an S3 action request is received, access is first checked against the role model. If the role model allows access, the access policy is checked; if not, access is denied. An access policy denies everything that is not explicitly allowed by the policy rules.

For access via API or FTP, issue keys.

To access objects in a bucket via a custom domain over HTTPS, you must add a TLS (SSL) certificate. You can issue a certificate from any provider. You can manage certificates via the control panel.