Get SSH access to integration

1. Get access

Ask somebody with access to add your SSH username (firstnamelastname) to the [user monitoring system][user-reviewer].

2. Create a user to SSH into integration

User accounts in our integration environments are managed in the govuk-puppet repository.

mac$ mkdir ~/govuk
mac$ cd ~/govuk
mac$ git clone git@github.com:alphagov/govuk-puppet.git

To create a new account, start by creating an SSH key at least 4096 bits long. For example:

mac$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/alphagov

Import the SSH key into your keychain.

mac$ /usr/bin/ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/alphagov

Now create a user manifest in ~/govuk/govuk-puppet/modules/users/manifests with your username and the public key you just created. Your username should use the firstnamelastname format.

Add the name of your manifest (your username) into the list of users::usernames in hieradata_aws/integration.yaml for integration and in hieradata/integration.yaml for CI.

Create a pull request with these changes. Once it has been reviewed by a member of the GOV.UK team, you can merge it and it will automatically deploy to the integration environment.

3. Access remote environments

Your pull request from earlier will hopefully have been merged by now. It’s time to test your access to servers via SSH.

If you’re not in the office right now, you’ll need to be connected to the GDS Office VPN for SSH access to integration.

While the applications are available directly via the public internet, SSH access to remote environments is via a ‘jumpbox’. You’ll need to configure your machine to use this jumpbox and use govukcli to SSH into server.

1. Copy the example SSH config file into the ~/.ssh/config file on your host machine.
2. Run ln -s ~/govuk/govuk-aws/tools/govukcli /usr/local/bin/govukcli on your host machine to be able to use the govukcli tool from any directory.

Test that it works by running:

mac$ govukcli set-context integration
mac$ govukcli ssh backend

Next, follow the same steps inside your VM. You can choose whether to import your alphagov keypair to the VM or to use the built in key-forwarding. Test that you can reach integration from your VM:

dev$ govukcli set-context integration
dev$ govukcli ssh backend