Getting Started

Overview

This guide walks through installing the Britive Access Broker on a Linux host and registering target Linux servers as resources in Britive Resource Manager. Once complete, the broker is ready for all Linux use cases covered in this section: JIT SSH key access and remote server access.

The broker runs as a systemd service under a dedicated britivebroker service account. It communicates outbound to Britive over HTTPS — no inbound ports are required.

Before You Begin

• A Britive tenant with administrator access
• A Linux host to run the broker (RHEL/CentOS 8+, Ubuntu 20.04+, or Amazon Linux 2/2023)
• Java 21 (OpenJDK) on the broker host
• A broker pool token from Resource Manager → Broker Pools → New Pool in the Britive console
• Outbound HTTPS (port 443) from the broker host to Britive

Install the Broker

curl -O "<broker-download-link>"

sudo dnf install java-21-openjdk-devel -y
java --version

sudo apt-get install -y openjdk-21-jdk
java --version

sudo rpm -ivh britive-broker-*.rpm

sudo dpkg -i britive-broker-*.deb

cd /opt/britive-broker/config/
sudo cp broker-config-template.yml broker-config.yml
sudo vi broker-config.yml

broker_pool_token: "<your-broker-pool-token>"

sudo chown -R britivebroker:britivebroker /opt/britive-broker
sudo systemctl enable britive-broker
sudo systemctl start britive-broker

sudo systemctl status britive-broker

Register Linux Servers as Resources

Each target Linux server is a resource in Britive Resource Manager. Create a resource type first, then register individual servers.

Create a resource type

resource "britive_resource_manager_resource_type" "linux" {
  name        = "LinuxServer"
  description = "Linux SSH server"

  parameters {
    param_name   = "hostname"
    param_type   = "string"
    is_mandatory = true
  }
  parameters {
    param_name   = "port"
    param_type   = "string"
    is_mandatory = true
  }
  parameters {
    param_name   = "ip"
    param_type   = "ip-cidr"
    is_mandatory = false
  }
}

Register a server

resource "britive_resource_manager_resource" "web01" {
  name          = "prod-web-01"
  description   = "Production web server"
  resource_type = britive_resource_manager_resource_type.linux.name

  parameter_values = {
    hostname = "prod-web-01.internal"
    port     = "22"
  }

  resource_labels = {
    environment = "Production"
    team        = "platform"
  }
}

Verify

# On the broker host: confirm the service is running
sudo systemctl is-active britive-broker

# Check recent broker logs
sudo journalctl -u britive-broker -n 50 --no-pager

In the Britive console:

Troubleshoot

Next Steps

• SSH Access — JIT SSH key checkout and checkin for local and shared servers
• Remote SSH Access — Broker-mediated SSH key management for remote servers