About lockdown mode
Flex Appliance lockdown mode offers additional security levels to protect your appliance and data, in addition to the hardened, secure operating environment that comes out of the box.
Lockdown mode provides the following benefits:
It prevents unauthorized access or modification to the underlying operating system (OS). Once lockdown mode is enabled, administrators cannot make changes to the OS or the internal components.
If you need access to the OS for emergency operations, an access key is required to temporarily unlock the appliance. This functionality prevents unauthorized changes even if a malicious actor gained access to stolen credentials.
It includes the option to create WORM storage instances that prevent your data from being encrypted, modified, or deleted. WORM is the acronym for Write Once Read Many. Any data that is saved on these instances is protected with the following security measures:
Immutability
This protection ensures that the backup image is read-only and cannot be modified, corrupted, or encrypted after backup.
Indelibility
This property protects the backup image from being deleted before it expires. The data is protected from malicious deletion.
Compliance clock
The fundamental attribute of WORM is the ability to accurately measure elapsed time to ensure the duration of data retention. The compliance clock is independent of the operating system time and the Network Time Protocol (NTP). It cannot be edited.
Flex Appliance includes the following lockdown modes:
Normal mode
This mode is the default mode of the appliance. Normal mode does not support WORM storage.
Enterprise mode
This mode adds additional access restrictions but retains a level of flexibility. In this mode:
You can create WORM storage instances.
If needed, the application administrator can disable the retention lock on backup images so that they can be expired before the specified retention date.
Users with the administrator role can delete the instances only if no data is present. If the instance is on WORM storage server version 19.0 or later, the application administrator must approve the deletion beforehand.
If the instance is on WORM storage server version 19.0.1 or later, security administrators can delete the instances only if no data is present. The application administrator must approve the deletion beforehand.
If the instance is on WORM storage server version 19.0 or earlier, security administrators can delete the instance if data is present. The application administrator does not need to approve the deletion beforehand.
To change from enterprise mode to normal mode, you must first delete all WORM storage instances.
Compliance mode
This mode adds the highest level of access restrictions. In this mode:
You can create WORM storage instances.
The retention lock on backup images cannot be disabled before the specified retention date.
You can delete the instances only if no data is present. If the instance is on WORM storage server version 19.0 or later, the application administrator must approve the deletion beforehand.
To change from compliance mode to enterprise mode or normal mode, you must first wait for all data on the WORM storage instances to expire and then delete the instances.
In both enterprise mode and compliance mode, storage reset is disabled.
Cohesity strongly recommends that you enable enterprise lockdown mode to prevent unauthorized access to the OS, even if you do not plan to create WORM storage instances.
Warning:
Lockdown mode does not block access to the remote management (IPMI) port. Cohesity recommends that you set up your network to restrict access and only allow security administrators or the users that manage the physical hardware to use the port.
The appliance must be in lockdown mode before you can create WORM storage instances. See Changing the lockdown mode.
For more information on creating and managing WORM storage instances, see the NetBackup Application Guide for Flex Appliance.