Connect Azure Resources

Connect Azure Resources to Guardrails

Azure Tenants, Management Groups, Active Directory, and Subscriptions can be imported individually if desired, but in each scenario it will require the organization to create an App Registration for Guardrails in Entra ID. This allows Guardrails to describe and inventory resources in the environment.

Remember that Mods enable Guardrails to work in the cloud environment. Refer to the Recommended Starting Mods for more information.

Process Overview

Connecting an Azure resource to Guardrails involves a few steps. They are:

Create App Registration and Client Secret
Assign API Permissions
Assign Azure IAM Permissions. This may involve creating a custom Read-Only IAM role
Connect the Azure resource to Guardrails

Creating a Guardrails App Registration

An app registration is required to connect any Azure resource to Guardrails. It's the same process to connect tenants, management groups, Entra ID Directories or subscriptions.

Login to the Azure portal.
Navigate to Microsoft Entra ID > App Registrations.
- Click New registration.
- Name the application. For example, Guardrails Application.
- Under the Supported Account Types option, choose which type of account can access the Guardrails application. Generally, the default option Accounts in this organizational directory only (Default Directory only - Single tenant) will be the correct choice. If multiple Azure tenants will need access, select the second option.
- Under Redirect URI, select Web for the type of application you want to create. Enter the URI of your Guardrails console. After setting the values, select Register.
Copy the both the Directory (tenant) ID and the Application (client) ID from the page that appears after successful creation of the app registration. These strings will be used later when connecting Guardrails to the Azure resource.

Create Client Secret

Navigate to Microsoft Entra ID > App Registrations and select your Guardrails app registration.
Go to the "Certificates & secrets" sidebar item.
Click on the "Client Secrets" tab
Click "+ New client secret". Provide a description and expiration period that matches organizational policy.
Save the Client Secret Value for later use. The Secret ID is not used by Guardrails.

Microsoft Graph API Permissions

API permissions are required when importing a Tenant, Management Group or EntraID Directory. Skip this section if import a subscription.

Navigate to Microsoft Entra ID > App Registrations and select your Guardrails app registration.
Click API Permissions on the left side. If there are any existing permissions, remove them by clicking the three dot menu icon and selecting Remove Permission.
Add the following API Permissions using the + Add a permission button.
- Microsoft Graph
  - Application Permissions
    - Directory
      - Directory.Read.All (Read directory data)

Note: After adding the above permissions, please remember to grant admin consent by clicking on the button Grant Admin consent for <directory name>.

Which Azure IAM Permissions to Grant

The Azure permissions granted to Guardrails depend completely on the organization's requirements. The table below shows the permissions recommended for various levels of Guardrails interaction with Azure resources.

Guardrails Mode	Required Permission	Description
Read/Write + Permissions	Owner	Detective controls, enforcements and manage permissions
Read/Write	Contributor	Detective controls and enforcements
Read-Only	Reader and/or Custom Role	Detective controls

Turbot recommends that organizations craft a custom role to meet their individual least privilege requirements. The Read-Only custom role described below should be used as a baseline.

Custom ReadOnly IAM Role

The default Reader RBAC provides broad read-only access to all Azure resource types. However, there are few permissions that Guardrails needs to inventory all resource types. The custom role described below grants read-only access plus the extra permissions.

Create the Role

The Read-Only custom role can be created easily in the embedded bash shell in the Azure portal.

Click the Shell icon in the top right, next to the search bar.
Select the Bash option. If an option is not presented, ensure that bash is selected in the dropdown menu in the top left of the shell.
Create and open a JSON file using the text editor of choice. For example, enter vim guardrails-readonly.json into the shell terminal then hit enter.
Paste the JSON below into the new text file. Be sure to add the Tenant ID to this text in the AssignableScopes attribute.

 {
  "properties": {
    "roleName": "Guardrails ReadOnly Role",
    "description": "Used by Guardrails for ReadOnly Access to Azure resources",
    "assignableScopes": [
      "/providers/Microsoft.Management/managementGroups/<<Tenant ID>>"
    ],
    "permissions": [
      {
        "actions": [
          "*/read",
          "Microsoft.Management/getEntities/action",
          "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/listkeys/action",
          "Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/secrets/read",
          "Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/read"
        ],
        "notActions": [],
        "dataActions": [],
        "notDataActions": []
      }
    ]
  }
}

Note: For those who do not wish to grant storageAccounts/listkeys, set the Azure > Storage > Queue > CMDB policy to Skip to avoid discovery errors. Queue discovery and management is not possible without listkeys permissions.

Review the documentation for Azure custom roles for the various different ways a custom role can be created.

To create the role, run this command az role definition create --role-definition guardrails-readonly.json in the shell.

Assign Azure IAM Permissions

The user provisioning Guardrails IAM permissions should have the Access management for Azure resources option set to Yes. If there is any question if a global administrator has the correct access, refer to Microsoft's guide on elevating access for a Global Administrator. If permissions had to be assigned, be sure to log out and log back in to refresh the permission set.

Once access has been verified, navigate to the target Tenant, Management Group or Subscription application in the Azure portal.
Select the Access control (IAM) tab on the left side.
Towards the top left, click + Add and select the Add Role Assignment option. This opens a new overlay on the right side.
In the Role dropdown, type the title of the role created in step 5. Note that this search is case-sensitive!
Leave the Assign access to field as default, then search for the Guardrails app registration that was created in step 2.
Click Save at the bottom to confirm the role assignment.

Note: All child resources will inherit any access granted on parent resources. For example, granting Reader to the Azure tenant grants the same permissions to all management groups and subscriptions.

Connect Guardrails to Azure

With the App registration, API permissions and Azure IAM permissions, you're ready to connect the Azure resource to Guardrails. Follow the appropriate instructions below.