BitLocker Status - OS Test

BitLocker is a full disk encryption that helps to protect your data by encrypting the drives to prevent unauthorized access. BitLocker encrypts the operating system drive, fixed data drives and removable drives thereby allowing only authorized users with valid credentials to access the data. However, if the BitLocker fails or stops, it can lead to loss of encryption protection, data inaccessibility and other security issues. Therefore, monitoring the BitLocker service and promptly identifying issues is of high importance.

This test monitors BitLocker on every volume (partition) in the target desktop and reports the BitLocker status and service status. This helps ensure that the encryption service is up and running. Additionally, this test also reports the capacity, volume type, protection and encryption status, thereby helping the administrator detect misconfigurations and potential security risks early. Continuous monitoring helps promptly identify any deviations, such as inactive encryption or disabled protection, which could lead to data exposure, loss, and other security issues.

Target of the test : A Proxmox Hypervisor

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Output of the test : One set of results for each volume on the Proxmox Hypervisor being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.

Port

The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this will be NULL.

Proxmox Node Name

Specify the name of the Proxmox node that you wish to monitor in this text box. By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the test monitor all the nodes in the target hypervisor.

Ignore VMs Inside View

Administrators of some high security Proxmox environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, yourIgnore VMs Inside View specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on a Proxmox Hypervisor by default.

Note:

While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box.

Exclude IP

Typically, when performing VM discovery, the eG agent automatically discovers the operating system on which every VM runs, and all the IP addresses that each VM supports. If two are more VMs on a target Proxmox hypervisor are in a VM cluster, then the eG agent will also auto-discover the cluster IP address. Since the cluster IP address is shared by all VMs in the cluster, this IP address will be in the discovery list of every VM in the hypervisor. In this case, if the eG agent attempts to obtain the 'inside view' of each VM in a cluster using their cluster IP address, incorrect metrics may be reported sometimes. To avoid this, you may want to instruct the eG agent to not use the cluster IP address when collecting 'inside view' metrics. For this, specify a comma-separated list of cluster IP addresses to be excluded in the Exclude IP text box.

Ignore WINNT

By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

Exclude VMs

Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs.

Domain, Admin User, Admin Password, and Confirm Password

By default, this test connects to each virtual guest remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. In order to obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with user privileges that allow remote communication with the virtual guests. The first step towards this is to specify the Domain within which the virtual guests reside. The Admin User and Admin Password will change according to the Domain specification. Discussed below are the different values that the Domain parameter can take, and how they impact the Admin User and Admin Password specifications:

  • If the VMs belong to a single domain : If the guests belong to a specific domain, then specify the name of that domain against the Domain parameter. In this case, any administrative user in that domain will have remote access to all the virtual guests. Therefore, an administrator account in the given domain can be provided in the Admin User field and the corresponding password in the Admin Password field. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.
  • If the guests do not belong to any domain (as in the case of Linux guests) : In this case, specify "none" in the Domain field, and specify a local administrator account name in the Admin User below.

    Prior to this, you need to ensure that the same local administrator account is available or is explicitly created on each of the virtual machines to be monitored. Then, proceed to provide the password of the Admin User against Admin Password, and confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

    If key-based authentication is implemented between the eG agent and the SSH daemon of a Linux guest, then, in the Admin User text box, enter the name of the user whose <USER_HOME_DIR> (on that Linux guest) contains a .ssh directory with the public key file named authorized_keys. The Admin password in this case will be the passphrase of the public key; the default public key file that is bundled with the eG agent takes the password eginnovations. Specify this as the Admin Password if you are using the default private/public key pair that is bundled with the eG agent to implement key-based authentication. On the other hand, if you are generating a new public/private key pair for this purpose, then use the passphrase that you provide while generating the pair. For the detailed procedure on Implementing Key-based Authentication refer to Troubleshooting the Failure of the eG Remote Agent to Connect to or Report Measures for Linux Guests.

  • If the guests belong to different domains - In this case, you might want to provide multiple domain names. If this is done, then, to access the guests in every configured domain, the test should be configured with the required user privileges; this implies that along with multiple Domain names, multiple Admin User names and Admin Passwords would also have to be provided. To help administrators provide these user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page.

    To access this page, simply click on the icon adjacent to the Admin User text box. To know how to use the special page, refer to BitLocker Status - OS Test.

  • If the Inside View Using flag is set to ‘eG VM Agent (Windows)’ - In this case, the inside view can be obtained without domain administrator privileges. Therefore, set the Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password parameters to none.

Report By User

While monitoring a Proxmox Hypervisor, the Report By User flag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the VM operating systems on the target hypervisor are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, if you want the desktops to be identified using the login of the user who is accessing them, set this flag to Yes. In other words, in VDI environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename.

Report Powered OS

This flag becomes relevant only if the Report By User flag is set to ‘Yes’.

If this flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the Report Powered OS flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently. 

Measures reported by the test:
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Bitlocker service status

Indicates whether the BitLocker service is running.

 

This measure is reported only for Summary descriptor.

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Stopped 0
Running 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether the BitLocker service is running. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Bitlocker status

Indicates the operational state of the BitLocker encryption on this volume.

 

This measure is reported only for Summary descriptor.

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Ok 0
Failure 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the operational state of BitLocker. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Capacity

Indicates the total storage size of this volume.

GB

 

Volume status

Indicates the current encryption status of this volume.

Number

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Fully encrypted 0
Encryption in progress 1
Fully decrypted 2

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate encryption status of the volume. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Encryption

Indicates the percentage of this volume encrypted using the BitLocker service.

Percent

If the value of this measure is 100%, then it means the entire volume is fully encrypted and secure.

Protection status

Indicates whether or not BitLocker protection is enabled in this volume.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
On 0
Off 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether BitLocker protection is enabled or not. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.

Volume type

Indicates the type of this volume.

 

The values that this measure can report and its corresponding numeric equivalents are listed in the table below:

Measure Value Numeric Value
Data 0
Operating System 1

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the type of the volume. In the graph of this measure however, the same is represented using the corresponding numeric equivalents only.