From Zero to Trust in Under 10 Minutes

We've all been there. You stumble across a promising new product or service, excited about the potential, but then dread hits: the setup. "I'll get to it later", you think, knowing it could be weeks before you find the time. But with Border0, that's not the case. In this blog post, I'll show you how to get started and be connected in under 10 minutes—yes, it's that easy!

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After you're done, you'll have a great improvement in your security posture. You'll eliminate the risks associated with shared credentials, empower your engineers with more streamlined and productive access, and gain the peace of mind that comes with knowing you're in a much better position to handle your next security audit.  All this, in just a few minutes, check out this video for an overview.

Installing Your First Connector (It's Seriously Fast)

Alright, let’s get started. The first step is installing the Border0 Connector. Think of it as the bridge between your private infrastructure and your users. It's where the VPN connections are terminated, where all the security checks take place, and it's the central point for all your access control. Basically, it's where most of the magic happens.

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Remember those sprawling VPN configurations and jump servers? Border0 consolidates all of that into a single, easily manageable connector. You deploy the connector in the same environment as your resources—whether that's a Raspberry Pi at home, an EC2 instance in AWS, or a container in Kubernetes. We have installers for all common environments. For Linux, a simple, one-command script makes installation a breeze. AWS users can deploy directly with our pre-built CloudFormation template. Containerized deployments are quick and easy, and we offer seamless, cloud-native integration with Kubernetes for maximum flexibility.

As you can see in the video above, installing the connector in this example took less than a minute! Imagine trying to configure a traditional VPN server in that time. 

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Installing the Border0 Client

Now that the connector's up and running, it's time to get you connected! To access your servers and networks, you'll need the Border0 Client (though, not strictly—we have an agentless option too, more on that later). Grab the client for your OS here.

Simply download the appropriate installer and follow the straightforward wizard. It's quick, painless, and you'll be ready to connect in moments.

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Once the client is installed, you'll be prompted to log in to your organization with your SSO credentials. That's it! You're now fully connected and ready to access your servers, databases, and private networks via exit nodes. No more juggling multiple VPN clients or remembering complex passwords. Border0 integrates with your existing identity provider, streamlining access and improving security. 

Making Services Available Through Border0 (The Fun Part!)

Now for the exciting part: bringing your services online! Making a resource available through Border0 is where the real magic happens. This is where you start to see the real difference between Border0 and a traditional VPN solution.

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At a high level, we have two categories of resources that can be made available through your Border0 connector: network access and server access.

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First up, we have network (or VPN-style) resources. These are your classic subnet routes, the kind you might be familiar with from split tunneling. For example, you can make your entire office network or your AWS VPC (e.g., 10.10.0.0/16) accessible. Another network resource is an exit node—basically, your own private internet gateway that lets you browse the web securely from a predictable static IP address. So, this covers the traditional VPN use cases, but with a fraction of the configuration overhead.

Then we have server-based resources. This is where the real power of Border0's privileged access management comes in. Here, you can make individual servers and applications available to your users with just their SSO credentials. This allows you to make things like SSH servers, databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL), Kubernetes clusters, internal web apps, Windows desktops—you name it—accessible. And because Border0 is application-aware, we can provision granular access controls using our policies.

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For example, you can give user Vincent read-only access to a database while user Jill has full read + write privileges. We can even set up session recordings and answer the crucial question: "Who accessed what, when, from where, and what did they do?" Try doing that with a traditional VPN and a bunch of bastion hosts! 

To learn more about how to created Resources (we call them Sockets), check out this video or our docs.

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Agentless Access (Because Sometimes You Just Need a Browser)

Want to access your infrastructure without installing anything?  We've got you covered.  Border0 offers an agentless option that lets you connect to your servers using just your browser. It's a magical experience, simply log in with your SSO credentials, and you'll have secure access to everything you need, right from your browser. Web based SSH and Database access. This is incredibly useful for quick tasks, accessing resources from unmanaged devices, or when you just don't want to install another client.

DevOps First (Built by Engineers, For Engineers)

We're engineers, just like you. And frankly, we were tired of wrestling with clunky access management tools in our previous jobs. We understand the challenges of managing access in a dynamic, cloud-native environment. This is the reason we’re so passionate about what we’re building here, a solution we wish we’d had. That means it's designed for the way modern engineering and IT teams actually work, both for end-users and administrators. 

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In today's world, infrastructure as code is king. And Border0 has a feature-rich Terraform provider. You can manage virtually everything we've talked about earlier, connector creation, resource definitions, policies, access controls all programmatically through Terraform. No more manual configuration or scripting. 

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Want to automate your entire Border0 deployment? Go for it. Need to integrate with existing CI/CD pipelines? We've got you covered with CLI tools, a Go SDK and a comprehensive Restful API. Border0 is built to be extended and adapted to your specific needs. For example, this is what it looks like to create a connector:

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resource "border0_connector" "example" {
  name                         = "example-connector"
  description                  = "My first connector created from terraform"
  built_in_ssh_service_enabled = true
}

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This snippet (and much more in our Terraform documentation) gives you a glimpse of how you can manage your Border0 infrastructure as code, streamlining your DevOps workflows. Imagine managing your VPN access with Terraform – a task that's notoriously complex with traditional solutions.

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Wrapping Up (And the Adventure Continues)

So, there you have it! In this post, we set out to prove a bold claim: you can set up Border0 and get connected in under 10 minutes. I think we delivered on that :). We walked through installing your first connector (easy!), setting up the client (even easier!), and touched on the agentless option (pretty cool, right?).

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We dove into making resources available, exploring both traditional VPN-style network access (subnet routes, exit nodes) and the powerful world of application-specific resources and privileged access management. Remember that database example? Playing with those granular permissions—read-only vs. read+write—that's just a taste of what's possible. This level of control is essential for maintaining compliance and preventing security breaches.

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We also showcased how Border0 is built with DevOps in mind. From our robust Terraform provider to our comprehensive APIs and CLI tools, we've made it easy to integrate Border0 into your existing workflows. Whether you want a quick start or you're building something incredibly complex, we're here to help.

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There's a lot more to explore, of course. This is just the beginning.

Ditch the complex access solutions and experience the power of Border0 today. Go from zero to fully operational in under 10 minutes! Ready to see for yourself? Start your free trial today, we'd love to work with you!