Modernize SSH Authentication with Identity-Driven Access

Ditch Static SSH Keys. Secure SSH Access with Short-Lived, Identity-Bound Certificates. Simplify, secure, and automate your SSH access with our Zero Trust Identity-Based SSH Certificate Management Software.

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BastionXP SSH Key Management Solution

SSH Keys Are Outdated. SSH Certificates Are the Future.

Static SSH keys were never designed for today's dynamic, cloud-native infrastructure. Your SSH key-based authentication is a ticking time bomb. They are hard to manage, impossible to track, and dangerous when compromised.

Problems with SSK Key Based Authentication:

  • Key Sprawl: SSH keys don't expire and they live long, leading to an ever-growing inventory of static, unmanaged keys that provide perpetual access to servers. Moreover, keys are stored in USB sticks, shared folders, and emails.
  • No Identity Binding: Keys don't tell you who accessed your servers. Without proper session logs, you lack the visibility and audit trails needed for compliance and security investigations.
  • Operational Headaches: Creating, distributing, and revoking keys across your infrastructure is laborious and prone to human error.
  • Blind Trust on Hosts: Users are forced to blindly trust host key fingerprints on their first connection (TOFU - Trust on First Use), opening the door to man-in-the-middle attacks.
  • Key Reuse: Setting up and using the same SSH key pair to login to multiple servers increases the surface area of potential attacks.

How BastionXP SSH Certificate Manager Works

Our SSH Certificate Manager replaces traditional SSH key-based authentication with ephemeral SSH user certificates that are tied directly to the user's verified identity via SSO, OIDC/SAML, and 2FA.

End user workflow:

  • User requests an SSH user certificate from the BastionX CA.
  • BastionXP CA requests the user to prove his/her identity.
  • User authenticates by logging in via SSO (OIDC/SAML) with 2FA.
  • SSH Certificate Manager issues a short-lived SSH certificate tied to the user identity.
  • User uses the certificate to SSH into authorized systems.
  • Certificate auto-expires, access is automatically revoked.
  • Any replica of the certificate, backed up or stored anywhere, also expires automatically.

Behind the scenes: The server automatically verifies the short-lived certificate by checking its signature against the trusted BastionXP CA (Certificate Authority) Certificate. This ensures the user certificate is issued by a trusted CA, the certificate is valid, unexpired, and linked to the authenticated user — so only authorized individuals can gain access.

No more distributing, rotating, or revoking static SSH keys.

No persistent credentials. No guesswork. Just secure, identity-bound SSH access.

BastionXP: The Ultimate Identity-Based SSH Certificate Management Solution

BastionXP Identity-Based SSH Certificate Management Software gives you complete control and visibility over your SSH certificate infrastructure from a single, centralized platform. Designed to scale with your business, it transforms SSH certificate management from a manual burden into a simple, automated process.

Key Features That Drive Security & Efficiency:

  • Centralized SSH Certificate Management: Gain a single pane of glass to view, manage, and audit every SSH certificate trail. This is the cornerstone of secure access.
  • Automated SSH Certificate Lifecycle: Our SSH Certificate Management Tool automates the entire certificate lifecycle—from certificate generation, signing and distribution to rotation and instant revocation. Eliminate manual processes and human error. Implement SSH certificate management best practices effortlessly.
  • Unrivaled Security: Achieve true zero-trust network access (ZTNA) by generating and distributing SSH certificates only after a successful SSO OIDC based user authentication.
  • Designed for All Work Environments: Whether you need Linux SSH Certificate management or support for other systems such as Windows or Mac, our solution integrates seamlessly into your existing workflow.
  • Identity-Based Access: Certificates are tied to user and host identities, ensuring that access is granted based on who you are, not just what key you have.
  • Enforced Expiry: Every certificate is short-lived, with a defined validity period, drastically reducing the window of vulnerability.
  • Effortless Onboarding & Offboarding: Single command to generate and manage short-lived SSH certificates for end users who need SSH access to servers. Short-lived user certificates, eliminate the need for user off-boarding process because certificates expire in few hours.
  • Avoids Key Sprawl: Short-lived SSH certificate based authentication avoid problems associated with public key sprawl. Certificates expire in few hours and become invalid even if copied or stored in multiple places.
  • Simplifies Auditing:Detailed audit log trails are generated for all user activities and certificate management actions. SSH session recording and replay feature helps reviewing every command executed by an user.

BastionXP is built for organizations that need to enforce Zero Trust Security. BastionXP Identity-Based Infrastructure Access Solution simplifies and automates secure access to any resource anywhere without comprimising security.

Automated Certificate & Key Management

BastionXP PKI/CA automates X.509 & SSH certificate creation, signing, distribution, rotation and revocation.

Identity Based Access Control

Certificates are tied to device, host and end user identity. Certificates are issued only after hardware-rooted device attestation or OIDC login.

Short-Lived Certificates

Issues short-lived SSL/TLS X.509 certificates to devices, workloads and end users, eliminating the security risks associated with long-lived certificates.

Zero Trust Security

Generates SSL/TLS X.509 server and client certificates for mutual TLS(mTLS) authentication and end-to-end encryption.

Auditing & Compliance

All activities and events are logged to provide a detailed log trail for auditing and compliance purposes. Logs can be analyzed later using a log analyzer to identify anomaly.

Role Based Access Control

Supports SCIM integration with your Identity Provider(IdP). Assign roles to your team members and restrict access to your enterprise resources using RBAC policies.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • How does BastionXP automate the certificate lifecycle for DevOps teams?

    BastionXP acts as a private ACME server, allowing your existing tools (like certbot, acme.sh, or cert-manager) to request, renew, and rotate certificates automatically. By using the ACME protocol, you eliminate the "human-in-the-middle" for internal certificate management, reducing the risk of expired certificates causing downtime.

  • By moving away from static secrets, BastionXP eliminates the risk of credential theft. Every connection—whether it’s a developer accessing a server, or workload connecting to a database — is authenticated via Mutual TLS (mTLS).

  • Yes. Because BastionXP is a fully compliant ACME server (RFC 8555), you don’t need proprietary agents. You can use industry-standard clients like Certbot, Lego for Linux servers, acme.sh for lightweight environments, and Autocert for Go applications without any code changes.

  • Yes. A core pillar of our Zero Trust philosophy is the use of ephemeral certificates. By issuing certificates that expire in hours or days rather than years, the "window of opportunity" for an attacker is virtually eliminated.

  • Yes. BastionXP includes a fully compliant ACME (RFC 8555) server, that supports 'http-01', 'dns-01', 'tls-alpn-01' and 'device-attest-01' challenges. This allows for automated certificate enrollment and renewal for workloads, web servers, VPNs, Wi-Fi access, NAS, RADIUS server, databases and internal services using standard tools like Certbot, Lego, autocert or custom ACME clients.

  • Absolutely. BastionXP is designed to work as an external issuer for cert-manager. This allows Kubernetes clusters to automatically provision mTLS certificates for ingress controllers, sidecars, and pod-to-pod communication using standard CRDs.

  • Unlike public ACME servers (like Let's Encrypt) which are "open to all," BastionXP uses External Account Binding (EAB) to ensure only authorized entities can register an account. It cryptographically binds an ACME account to a pre-approved identity in your system, preventing "Shadow PKI" where unauthorized scripts or users spin up certificates.

  • BastionXP functions as both a CA (Signer) and an RA (Registration Authority). While a standard CA blindly signs any valid request, BastionXP’s RA layer applies Granular Provisioner Policies. You can restrict specific ACME accounts to only issue certificates for specific DNS subdomains, IP ranges, or short validity periods (e.g., 4 hours, 8 hours, or 24 hours).

  • Yes. It is a core use case. BastionXP can issue both client and server certificates, making it easy to enforce mTLS for service-to-service authentication in microservices, internal APIs, and database connections.

  • Yes. Since BastionXP is a self-hosted private CA, it does not require an internet connection to Let's Encrypt or other public authorities. This makes it ideal for highly regulated industries, air-gapped data centers, or local IoT environments.

  • BastionXP can issue certificates to IoT devices using ACME or via hardware-rooted attestation. This ensures each device has a unique, non-exportable identity, allowing for secure encrypted communication from the edge to your central cloud.

  • Traditional PKI is often heavy, requiring complex databases, Windows servers, and months of integration. BastionXP collapses this into a single, lightweight binary that is "DevOps-native," meaning it can be deployed in minutes and managed via JSON policies and standard APIs.

  • BastionXP is typically managed by Platform Engineering, DevOps, or SRE teams who need to provide "Security-as-a-Service" to the rest of the organization. It allows security teams to set the "guardrails" (policies) while letting developers automate their own certificate needs.

  • Every certificate request, renewal, and revocation is logged with full attribution. Because of EAB, you can see exactly which identity requested which certificate, providing a clear audit trail for compliance frameworks like SOC2, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS.

  • Yes. Please write to us for the Enterprise Free Trial Version of BastionXP. We can offer the free trial as a self-hosted or cloud-hosted solution.

  • BastionXP Enterpise Version supports:

    a) Private PKI/CA and ACME server that issues TLS X.509 certificates and keys based on hardware-rooted device attestation for Apple Devices.

    b) Integrates with your favorite MDM such as Jamf, Fleet DM and others.

    b) Integrates with Google G-Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Okta, Keycloak, and AWS IAM based SSO/OAuth.

    c) Role Based Access Control using Microsoft Azure Active Directory, Okta, Keycloak or any IAM.

    e) Priority customer support.

  • BastionXP solution is a cloud native application that is cloud vendor agnostic. It works seamlessly in any cloud including AWS, GCP, Azure or Digital Ocean cloud.

  • Yes. We offer a cloud hosted version of BastionXP as a SaaS offering. You can try the cloud version for free for 30-days. No credit card required. Please write to us to learn more about the SaaS offering.

  • Please write to [email protected] for sales, queries, pricing and demo request.

Contact Us

For sales, support, demo or any queries, please write to us at:

[email protected]