spliced

SpliceD

SpliceD (Splice Daemon) lives inside the perimeter of the Windows domain and handles new host join requests.

Authentication

SpliceD uses Google Application Default Credentials to interact with the Cloud Datastore. The daemon requires a provisioned service account with datastore privileges.

Account Setup

1. In the Cloud Project, go to IAM & Admin
2. Go to Service Accounts
3. Create a new service account
   • Select the option to Furnish a new private key
4. Assign the role Datastore > Cloud Datastore Owner to the new account.

Account Credentials

The Cloud control panel will provide a JSON encoded credential file for the new account, which can be used to authenticate an application from Windows.

WARNING: The credential file is sensitive, and allows anyone to impersonate the role account. Never store it where it can be exposed to non-administrators, and scrub it from any intermediary storage. When in doubt, you can delete the existing key and issue a new one in the service account UI.

To install the credentials on the SpliceD server:

1. Copy the service account .json file to the server filesystem. (Ex: C:\ProgramData\SpliceD)
2. Configure a new system environment variable with the path to the file.
   • Name: GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS
   • Value: [Path to .json]
3. Consider restricting the filesystem ACLs on the credential file to limit access to the service account.

Configuration

Configuration is handled via the registry. Before enabling the spliced service, run spliced.exe from the command line to configure the application.

spliced configure -domain "domain.example.com" -instance "spliced123" -project "example-cloud-project" -topic "subscription1"

You can modify settings by re-running the configure command with one or more parameters and restarting the service.

Detail

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Splice\spliced
  • Name: domain
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: The name of the domain to be joined
      • Example: 'domain.example.com'
  • Name: instance
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: A unique name for this backend.
      • Example: 'spliced123'
  • Name: project
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: The name of the Google Cloud project.
      • Example: 'example-cloud-project'
  • Name: topic
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: The name of the PubSub subscription topic.
      • Example: 'subscription1'
  • Name: encrypt_blob
    • Type: REG_DWORD
    • Data: 1 to enable; 0 to disable
    • Default: enabled
  • Name: verify_certs
    • Type: REG_DWORD
    • Data: 1 to enable; 0 to disable
    • Default: enabled
  • Name: ca_root_url
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: The root URL of the certificate authority to use for certificate verification. Required when verify_certs = 1. See also ca_cert_path.
      • Example: 'https://my.rootca.com/'
  • Name: ca_cert_path
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: The path under ca_root_url where the public certificates to be used during verification are stored. This path is appended to ca_root_url and used to locate the issuing certificate for verification. Required when verify_certs = 1.
      • Example: 'some/ca/path'
  • Name: permit_reuse
    • Type: REG_DWORD
    • Data: 1 to enable; 0 to disable

Feature Detail

encrypt_blob

If set, SpliceD will attempt to RSA-encrypt the metadata blob before uploading it. This requires the request to include a certificate from the Splice client.

If no certificate is provided by the client, the join will fail.

permit_reuse

The NetProvisionComputerAccount function supports the NETSETUP_PROVISION_REUSE_ACCOUNT option. If enabled, the join will attempt to reuse an existing account of the same name, should one exist.

Reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd815228(v=vs.85).aspx

Logging

SpliceD will log to the Application Event Log under the source name SpliceD.

Debugging

Check the Event Log for any errors caught by the application.

The API calls used to perform the domain join will cause Windows to log to the NetSetup.log file located at C:\Windows\debug\NetSetup.LOG.

netProvisionComputerAccount failed to return successfully (XXXX,The operation completed successfully.)

The netProvisionComputerAccount api call will return a System Error Code if the join fails, which will be logged to the Event Log. The error code (in hex, XXXX above) can be translated to a specific condition by reviewing Microsoft's error handling reference.

• 08b0: Account already exists. See permit_reuse.
• 216D: Joiner's machine account quota has been exceeded.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx

Machine Account Quota

Active Directory gives each existing account a fixed quota for the number of new machine accounts that can be joined using the existing account's credentials. (If SpliceD is running as the local system account, this quota applies to the host's machine account.) The quota defaults to 10, and is configured by the MS-DS-Machine-Account-Quota attribute on the domain.

If the quota is unchanged, SpliceD will begin returning an error after its host account reaches the join quota.

There are multiple ways to adjust the domain quota. One of the most practical is to apply a custom permission set on the OU where SpliceD will create the machine accounts.

1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers
2. On the OU receiving new computer accounts, go to Properties
3. Go to Security tab
4. Add either:
   • The domain user the SpliceD service will run as or
   • The machine account(s) where SpliceD is installed or
   • A security group containing the domain users or machine accounts
5. Using the Advanced option, grant the accounts the Create Computer Object privilege.
   • You may revoke any additional privileges.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms678639(v=vs.85).aspx