Policy as Code: Intro to Sentinel

In the last few years, we've seen an explosion of DSLs and tools that focus on enabling Infrastructure as Code. The Infrastructure as Code approach allows the best practices of software development like code reuse, versioning, and peer review to be applied to new domains such as infrastructure management. In helping organizations adopt these tools, we found a common shortcoming was the ability to impose specific compliance or security policies on infrastructure changes. In trying to apply the "As Code" approach to this problem, we created a new language called Sentinel, focusing specifically on policy applications. Sentinel is meant to be read and written by non-programmers, specific compliance and security officers who are unfamiliar with traditional programming languages and constructs. We discuss the design principles of the Sentinel language, it's basic syntax, runtime implementation, and some of the use cases we've deployed it for.

Transcript

1.  Policy as Code: Intro to Sentinel @armon
2.  Armon Dadgar @armon
3. @armon
4. “POLICY AS CODE”
5. “INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE”
6. • Before: Artisanal and Handcrafted • Point-and-Click UX • SSH + Manual Setup • Rsync between machines • etc INFRASTRUCTURE BEFORE
7. • After: Automated and Standardized • Single source of truth • Automated provisioning • Enables Scale INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE
9. • Learn from Software Development • Versioning (Rollbacks) • Peer Review • Abstraction / Encapsulation • Code Reuse • Automation and Leverage BENEFITS
10. PROVISIONING A DATACENTER
11. Developers IT Operations Networking Security Procurement Sysadmins Finance Legal
12. • Replace ticketing workflows with APIs • Public Cloud consolidated many concerns • Private Cloud brings similar APIs • Enables Infrastructure as Code • Huge increase in leverage UBIQUITOUS APIS
13. PARADOX OF AUTOMATION
14. SANITY CHECKING IT Ops Procurement “Please provision 5000 VMs”
15. SANITY CHECKING IT Ops Procurement “Are you sure 5000?”
16. SANITY CHECKING IT Ops Cloud “Please provision 5000 VMs”
17. SANITY CHECKING IT Ops Cloud “Done!”
18. • Paradox of Automation • Accidental Error • Compliance Bypass • Malicious Intent SCALING AUTOMATION
19. • Governs Infrastructure as Code • Defines a sandbox to automate in • Codify business regulation and “sanity checking” POLICY AS CODE
20. • Separate teams for Procurement / IT Operations / etc • Bulkhead against failures • Separate authors • Policy as Code (Compliance / Security) • Infrastructure as Code (Operators / Developers) SEPARATION OF RESPONSIBILITY
21. POLICY AS CODE
22. • Changes only during business hours • Min / Max number of service instances • Instance types allowed • Public Cloud regions • Ensure resources are tagged (billing, tenancy) • Certified containers / AMIs only EXAMPLE POLICIES
23. • Security / Compliance teams define and enforce • Not familiar with “As Code” approach • Need to test policies ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGES
24. SENTINEL
25. • “Policy as Code Framework” • Sentinel Language Specification* • Golang Embedded Runtime • Simulator tool • Import SDK WHAT IS SENTINEL * https://docs.hashicorp.com/sentinel/language/spec
26. • Non-programmer friendly • Easy to Embed • Simple • Debuggable • Go Friendly DESIGN GOALS
27. • Language must be read and written by those with little to no programming experience • Traditional constructs should be available, but not needed for most policies NON-PROGRAMMER FRIENDLY
28. • Impacts Runtime more than Language • No support for unsafe operations (arbitrary memory access) • Must be easy to sandbox • Active Enforcement • Prevent Violation A Priori • Passive Enforcement • Detect Violation Post Hoc EASY TO EMBED
29. • Simple types (string, int, bool) at the expense of performance or exactness • Policies are typically small and don’t need to much flexibility • Ideally only one way to do something • “Zen of Python” SIMPLE
30. • Easy to debug and test for those not familiar • Often the sharpest corner when learning DEBUGABBLE
31. • Majority of HashiCorp tooling is Go • Simple to integration • Minimal changes to tooling / process • Performance implications GO FRIENDLY
32. NOT INVENTED HERE?
33. • JavaScript, Python, Lua, Ruby • Non-programmer friendliness • Embeddable • Go friendliness EXISTING LANGUAGES
34. • Sentinel has dynamic types • Wanted static typing • Much friendlier to non-programmers • External integrations more complex DESIGN DECISIONS: DYNAMIC TYPING
35. import "time" deployment_window = rule { time.hour > 8 and time.hour < 17 } main = rule { deployment_window } First Class Rules
36. • Equivalent to functions • Lazy • Memoized • Performance for redundant rules • More Friendly DESIGN DECISIONS: FIRST CLASS RULES
37. import "external" external_ready = rule { external.expensive_call() } internal_override = rule { … } main = rule { external_ready or (!external_ready and interal_override) }
38. • Dedicated Existential Operators • any: expression is true for any term • all: expression is true for all terms • “All artifacts must come from a trusted source” • “Any of the tags must be the tenant ID” DESIGN DECISIONS: EXISTENTIAL OPERATORS
39. • Plain English Operators • and, or, contains, in, is, matches, not • Traditional Operators • Easier for non-programmers DESIGN DECISIONS: SIMPLE OPERATORS
40. • Avoid Exceptions / Panic • Must propagate errors • “Infectious” Undefined • Can be escaped by boolean logic with else DESIGN DECISIONS: UNDEFINED VALUE
41. import “time” # valid_bar will be undefined obj = null valid_bar = rule { obj.foo.bar == 42 } valid_time = rule { time.hour > 8 } main = rule { (valid_bar or valid_time) else false }
42. BASIC SYNTAX
43. main = rule { all obj.items as item { item matches "my-item-[a-z0-9]+" } }
44. sum = func(list) { count = 0 for list as elem { count += elem } return count } main = rule { sum(obj.items) is 42 }
45. allowed_size = ["m3.small", "m4.small", "c1.large"] allowed_regions = {“stage”:“east","prod":“west"} valid_provider = rule { all providers as p { p.region is allowed_regions[env.region] }
 } valid_resource = rule { all resources as r { r.type is "instance" and r.size in allowed_size } } main = rule { valid_provider and valid_resource}
46. RUNTIME IMPLEMENTATION
47. • Lexer / Parser • Semantic Checker • Evaluator / Interpreter • Standard Library KEEP IT SIMPLE
48. • Learn From Go • Maintain the position offsets (line, column) • Support a “fmt” command • Canonical Format LEXER / PARSER
49. • Early warning to users • Main rules exist • Imports valid SEMANTIC CHECKING
50. • Rule Memoization • Policy Caching • Import Recycling • Sandboxing • Execution time limited • Memory limited • Stack depth limited EVALUATOR
51. • Avoid User Functions • Built in Standard Library • Time, Math, CIDR parsing, Strings, etc STANDARD LIBRARY
52. ENFORCEMENT LEVELS "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"
53. • Different Levels • Runtime aware • Advisory • Soft Mandatory • Hard Mandatory ENFORCEMENT LEVELS
54. • Policy is allowed to fail • Warning is showed to user • “Warn if user provisions deprecated instance type” ENFORCEMENT LEVEL: ADVISORY
55. • Action is blocked when policy fails • Action is allowed when an override is specified • Override is tied to additional permissions • User has explicitly acknowledged out of policy action • “Do not allow changes outside of business hours (unless there is an outage)” ENFORCEMENT LEVEL: SOFT MANDATORY
56. • Action is blocked when policy fails • Override is not possible • “Encryption keys are at least 128 bits and non-exportable” ENFORCEMENT LEVEL: HARD MANDATORY
57. • Multiple policies may be evaluated per action • Smaller policies vs Monolithic policy • Mandatory failures can short circuit RUNTIME AWARENESS
58. • Sentinel Runtime is embedded • In Data Path • Active Enforcement • How to develop and test policies? EMBEDDED FRAMEWORK
59. SENTINEL SIMULATOR
60. Terminal Usage: sentinel [--version] [--help] <command> [<args>] Available commands are: apply Execute a policy and output the result doc Show documentation for an import from a doc file fmt Format Sentinel policy to a canonical format test Test policies version Prints the Sentinel version
61. Terminal $ sentinel apply -trace example_1.sentinel Pass Execution trace. The information below will show the values of all the rules evaluated and their intermediate boolean expressions. Note that some boolean expressions may be missing if short-circuit logic was taken. TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:1 - Rule "main" TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:15 - time.hour > 8 TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:33 - time.hour < 17
62. Terminal $ sentinel apply -trace example_1.sentinel Fail Execution trace. The information below will show the values of all the rules evaluated and their intermediate boolean expressions. Note that some boolean expressions may be missing if short-circuit logic was taken. FALSE - example_1.sentinel:3:1 - Rule "main" FALSE - example_1.sentinel:3:15 - time.hour > 16
63. • Apply allows for playing with policies during development • Test suites • Regression testing TESTING POLICIES
64. Terminal $ tree . ├── example_1.sentinel ├── test │ ├── example_1 │ │ ├── fail.json │ │ └── pass.json
65. { "config": { ... }, "mock": { "time": { "hour": 9 } }, "test": { "main": false } } pass.json
66. Terminal $ sentinel test -v example_1.sentinel PASS - example_1.sentinel PASS - test/example_1/fail.json trace: FALSE - example_1.sentinel:3:1 - Rule "main" FALSE - example_1.sentinel:3:15 - time.hour >= 16 PASS - test/example_1/pass.json trace: TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:1 - Rule "main" TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:15 - time.hour >= 16 TRUE - example_1.sentinel:3:35 - time.hour < 17
67. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION
68. IMPORT SDK
69. • Infrastructure composed of many pieces • Many policies require external information • Easy to incorporate external state IMPORTS
70. • SDK makes it easy to expose new import • Host systems allow imports to be specified • Configured in advance for security • Plugins use IPC • Runtime multiplexes and garbage collects IMPORT SDK
71. • Integrate common systems • Integrate custom internal systems • Extend with arbitrary logic IMPORT SDK
72. CROSS SYSTEM PROTECTION Submit Service Service Configured?
73. CROSS SYSTEM PROTECTION Delete Service Config Service Running?
74. USE CASES
75. • Infrastructure as Code guardrails • Simplify Compliance • “Fool me once, shame on you.” POLICY AS CODE USE CASES
76. • Define Sandbox • Limits the potential damage of automation • Impose “sanity check” without manual process INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE GUARDRAILS
77. • Compliance often expressed as Word doc • Codify compliance requirements • Active enforcement simpler than passive detection • “An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” SIMPLIFY COMPLIANCE
78. • Policies will never be exhaustive • Memory is finite! • Codify policies to defend against repeat mistakes • Scaling policies easier to expanding memory AVOID REPEAT MISTAKES
79. • Policy as Code builds upon “As Code” • Shared benefits as Infrastructure as Code • Sentinel a framework for Policy as Code • Language, Import SDK OSS • Next Step in Infrastructure Automation CONCLUSION
80. THANKS!