Privileged Access Manager (PAM)

This skill provides step-by-step guidance for planning, validating, and executing Privileged Access Manager (PAM) entitlement CRUD operations, approval workflow configurations, access elevations, and grant approval/denial workflows.

Table of Contents

• Core Concepts
• Approval Workflows & Max Request Duration
• Safety & Confirmation Strategy
• Plan-Validate-Execute Pattern
• Mode 1: Interactive Access Elevation
• Mode 2: Standalone Entitlement CRUD
• Mode 3: Approver Workflow
• Supporting Links & Resources

Core Concepts {#core-concepts}

Privileged Access Manager (PAM) replaces permanent or ambient IAM role assignments with on-demand, time-bound, and audited access elevations. Rather than appending permanent IAM policy bindings, PAM uses:

• Entitlements: Configurations defining access scopes, eligible requesters, and approvers.
• Grants: Short-lived requests created against entitlements to activate the entitlement's IAM roles.

Privileged Access (privilegedAccess)

The privilegedAccess block in an entitlement defines the precise access scope that will be granted. An access scope comprises three essential components:

• Resource: The target Google Cloud resource (Project, Folder, or Organization) where access is granted.
• Role Setup: The IAM role (roleBindings.role) to be assigned.
• Condition: (Optional) An IAM condition expression (roleBindings.conditionExpression) restricting when or where the role applies.

Core Workflow

1. Administrators create Entitlements.
2. Requesters can then request Grants against these entitlements.
3. If the entitlement is configured with approvals, then an approver must approve the requested grant.
4. Once all necessary approval steps are completed, the grant is activated for the requested time.
5. The grant automatically ends after the requested duration has elapsed, and the elevated access is removed.

Approval Workflows & Max Request Duration {#approval-workflows}

Approval Workflows (approvalWorkflow)

When sensitive environments require human approval before temporary access is activated, configure the approvalWorkflow block in the entitlement YAML manifest (entitlement.yaml).

approvalWorkflow:
  manualApprovals:
    # Optional: requires approver to supply a justification string
    requireApproverJustification: true
    steps:
    - approvalsNeeded: 1
      approverEmailRecipients:
      - approver@example.com
      approvers:
      - principals:
        - user:db-lead@my-company.com  # or group:sre-leads@my-company.com

• When to include: Include approvalWorkflow whenever the user prompt specifies that manual approval or an approver (user or group) is required.
• Outcome: When a user requests a grant against an entitlement with approvalWorkflow, the grant transitions to APPROVAL_AWAITED. Requesters must await an Approver's decision (Mode 3).

Max Request Duration (maxRequestDuration)

maxRequestDuration defines the maximum single access elevation timeframe a requester may ask for when placing a grant request.

• Flexible Configuration: Configure maxRequestDuration according to the user's specific request (e.g. 8 hours / 28800s, 1 hour / 3600s, 24 hours / 86400s).
• Default Value: If the user does NOT specify a maximum request duration, default to 4 hours (14400s).
• YAML Syntax: Always format maxRequestDuration as a string in seconds in the entitlement YAML (e.g., "14400s", "28800s").

Safety & Confirmation Strategy {#safety-confirmation}

Adhere strictly to these workflow guards:

• Modifying / Destructive Executions (Create, Update, Delete, Approve, Deny, Revoke): Always present a plain-text summary of the planned adjustments and prompt the user for explicit confirmation (Yes/No).
• Read-Only Inspections (List, Describe, Search): Run autonomously without requesting confirmation.
• Batching Bash Commands (Reduce User Confirmations): The host environment requires user approval for every individual shell tool call. To minimize confirmation popups, combine sequential read-only and lookup commands into a single compound bash script within one tool call (e.g., combining project, folder, and organization hierarchy audits into a single multiline execution).
• Anti-Loop Strategy: If a command fails with a clear, actionable error, you may attempt to self-debug and retry. If the error is ambiguous, halt immediately, present the stderr output, and await user direction.

Plan-Validate-Execute Pattern {#plan-validate-execute}

For all modifying actions (Mode 1 Step 3, Mode 2 Create, Update, Delete, Mode 3 Approve, Deny):

1. Plan: Construct the proposed parameters or read the sample entitlement structure. (For entitlement creation, load and use the template: assets/entitlement_template.yaml).
2. Validate: Inspect the target configuration parameters (resource names, role bindings, duration limits) for compliance with corporate rules.
3. Execute: Present the validated plan, obtain explicit user confirmation, and run the gcloud command.

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Mode 1: Interactive Access Elevation {#mode-1}

When the user requests temporary access elevation as a Requester, load and follow the detailed instructions in references/requester.md.

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Mode 2: Standalone Entitlement CRUD {#mode-2}

Follow these steps for entitlement configurations.

Required Permissions for Entitlement Admins

• roles/privilegedaccessmanager.admin: Required to create, update, and delete entitlement configurations (Mode 1 Step 3 and Mode 2 CRUD).
• Scope IAM Admin Rights: Required on the target hierarchy scope because creating an entitlement authorizes future role evaluations and bindings on that scope:
  • Organizations: roles/iam.securityAdmin
  • Folders: roles/resourcemanager.folderAdmin
  • Projects: roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin
• roles/privilegedaccessmanager.viewer: Required to list and describe entitlements across scopes.

(Rule: For all Standalone Entitlement CRUD commands below, use the flag matching where the entitlement is defined: pass --project=PROJECT_ID, --folder=FOLDER_ID, or --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID).

1. Create Entitlement

1. Check if ENTITLEMENT_ID exists:

gcloud pam entitlements describe ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

• If Exists: Halt. Ask: "The requested PAM Entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID already exists. Would you like to view its details or update it instead? (View / Update / Exit)"
• If NOT_FOUND: Load the template assets/entitlement_template.yaml. Generate IDs in lowercase using hyphen separators derived from the role name (e.g., compute-admin for roles/compute.admin). Note:
  • You may specify multiple IAM roles under roleBindings.
  • You may also include an optional IAM conditionExpression for each role binding.
  • Legacy basic roles (e.g., roles/viewer, roles/editor, roles/owner) are NOT supported. Instead, use their v2 basic role equivalents (e.g., roles/basic.viewer, roles/basic.editor, roles/basic.owner). Ensure you select a valid predefined, custom, or v2 basic role.
• Set maxRequestDuration based on user specification (e.g. "28800s" for 8 hours, "3600s" for 1 hour). If unspecified by the user, default to "14400s" (4 hours). If manual approval is specified by policy or requested by the user, configure the approvalWorkflow block in entitlement.yaml. Preserve requesterJustificationConfig: {unstructured: {}}.
• Prompt: "You are about to create the PAM Entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID. Do you approve this creation? (Yes/No)"
• Deploy:

gcloud pam entitlements create ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --entitlement-file=entitlement.yaml \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

2. Read Entitlements

Run these read operations autonomously:

List all entitlements at a single scope:

gcloud pam entitlements list \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

To list all entitlements defined across the entire resource hierarchy (project, ancestor folders, and organization), use the hierarchy listing script:

bash scripts/list_entitlements_hierarchy.sh --project=PROJECT_ID

(Or pass --folder=FOLDER_ID or --organization=ORGANIZATION_ID).

Describe target entitlement:

gcloud pam entitlements describe ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

3. Update Entitlement

1. Run the export command to generate the current config (which includes the etag):

   gcloud pam entitlements export ENTITLEMENT_ID \
       --location=global \
       --project=PROJECT_ID > {scratch}/updated_entitlement.yaml
   

   If missing, offer to run list or exit.

2. Edit the exported {scratch}/updated_entitlement.yaml file to apply the requested changes (e.g., updating maxRequestDuration, approvalWorkflow, or eligibleUsers). Do not alter the etag.

3. Prompt: "You are about to update the PAM Entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID. Do you approve this update? (Yes/No)"

4. Execute:

gcloud pam entitlements update ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --entitlement-file={scratch}/updated_entitlement.yaml \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

4. Delete Entitlement

1. Verify existence using describe. If missing, offer list/exit.

2. Safety Check: An entitlement cannot be deleted if there are open grants. Before deleting, search for any ACTIVE or SCHEDULED grants:

   gcloud pam grants list \
       --entitlement=ENTITLEMENT_ID \
       --location=global \
       --project=PROJECT_ID \
       --filter="state:(ACTIVE, SCHEDULED)"
   

   If any open grants are found, prompt the user for permission to revoke them: "There are active or scheduled grants on this entitlement. Do you authorize me to revoke them so the entitlement can be deleted? (Yes/No)"

   If Yes, revoke them:

   gcloud pam grants revoke GRANT_ID \
       --entitlement=ENTITLEMENT_ID \
       --location=global \
       --project=PROJECT_ID \
       --reason="Revoking to delete entitlement"
   

3. Prompt: "You are about to permanently delete the PAM Entitlement ENTITLEMENT_ID. Do you approve this deletion? (Yes/No)"

4. Execute:

gcloud pam entitlements delete ENTITLEMENT_ID \
    --location=global \
    --project=PROJECT_ID

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Mode 3: Approver Workflow {#mode-3}

When an Approver needs to review, approve, or reject pending grant requests, load and follow the detailed instructions in references/approver.md.

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Supporting Links & Resources {#supporting-links}

For further information on working with Privileged Access Manager, refer to:

• Google Cloud Privileged Access Manager Overview
• Setting up PAM Entitlements
• Requesting and auditing PAM Grants
• gcloud SDK pam Reference Guide