The Powerbroker

[Kusi Bertoldo]

Hasanyone used PowerBroker with Discovery or Service Mapping? How does that even work? In our environment, to my understanding, you use a Jump host and then use powerbroker to login to various target machines. For Discovery and Service Mapping, everything is direct via IP address. So, how would you tell Discovery or Service Mapping to login to a Unix jump host and use that to get to anther server? I'm guessing that is not how it works, so how does it work? Is this assuming that every server is bring fronted by powerbroker and that Discovery and Service Mapping would use that port, and then pbrun commands to do what it needs??

I have never used Powerbroker although a client I worked with once were considering it. So my understanding of how this works might not be totally correct but will hopefully be enough to explain how it works with ServiceNow.

If you select pbrun as the privileged command in ServiceNow, then any command where it currently uses sudo by default (such as dmidecode), uses pbrun instead. When pbrun is used on a target device, a Powerbroker daemon connects to the Powerbroker policy server to check whether the user is allowed to run that command. If a command such as uname is run where privilege escalation is not required, the command will run as the discovery user and pbrun is not used.

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.

I got to know Tony well over many years and introduced him regularly at community broadcasting awards nights and events. He once compared me to Bert Newton with the follow-on line, "Although Bert has charm and grace." On another occasion, he called me "the enfant terrible of community radio". I mean, who wouldn't want that title?

Yes, Tony was a former Liberal Party president. Yes, he was a former Minister for Post and Telecommunications during the Malcolm Fraser government. Yes, Mark Latham once described him as a deformed character. Of course, he was many more things than the first few lines of his bio (and yes, his bio was beyond impressive.)

Community radio changed my life in ways I never imagined. It sparked something inside me and opened up a whole new world. I truly believe it saved me. And if Tony thinks of me as the "enfant terrible" of community radio, he only has himself to blame for being the Minister who gave us "regular folks" the chance to take to the airwaves. The legislation and continued support for community radio in Australia meant that a neurodivergent, queer, eccentric regional kid had a place to be, to broadcast from, and to connect with my community. As a nation, Australia has built the most exceptional community radio sector in the world. This was all made possible by the influence of a "great Liberal Party powerbroker" who played a significant role in championing the "radical" community radio sector and being unafraid to give a voice to the community.

Tony Staley championed "the voice of the people" during his time as Minister and also after he left public office. He oversaw remarkable growth as the long-term President of the Public Broadcasting Foundation, now known as the Community Broadcasting Foundation.

I'll always remember the thrill of accepting the Tony Staley Award for Excellence in Community Broadcasting in 2002. I was just a kid from Ballarat at the time, regularly on the train to Melbourne to work with a team of incredible young people, and we poured our hearts into a youth TV program called Dawns Crack. We worked tirelessly week after week, always striving to create something unique on a shoestring budget. At the awards night, Tony himself even shook my hand and complimented our program's name, jokingly asking who Dawn was. But the remarkable thing about Tony was that he was always there as a champion and cheerleader, year in and year out, particularly in his support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. He was there the following year in 2003 as well, congratulating our SYN FM crew for winning the Tony Staley Award - a momentous moment in the history of SYN being on air full-time. After one CBAA Awards event, he even joined us "youth" for pizza afterwards, and we were all like kids in a candy store, so excited to hang out with him.

I had the privilege of having private conversations with Tony. His willingness to challenge the norm and think outside the box impressed me - even within his beloved political party. We laughed about the old days of parliament, where Ministers worked effectively with the opposition in the Old Parliament House building (he believed the smaller building produced better collaboration and collegiality.) You might not know that Tony fought passionately for freedom of speech, even going so far as to defend 3CR (the radical leftwing ratbags) when its licence was in jeopardy. Tony Staley recognised the value of diverse perspectives, even those that differed from his political beliefs. We need more of this thinking in public life today.

I didn't agree with all (most) of Tony's politics. Yet, I share a worldview with Tony about building space for differences of opinion, not just demonising or silencing the "other side", and being willing to shake up the status quo and build inclusive and innovative platforms.

Community radio saved my life and gave me the space to grow and build a life. Tony, you're a gem, and my story is one of tens of thousands who are so grateful for the community radio sector that you pioneered and helped prosper. What a legacy.

Yet the former Bulls point guard and Michael Jordan sidekick still looks like he could give a contender meaningful minutes off the bench. It's been 17 years since Armstrong played his last game in the NBA, but the boy-ish smile and young-at-heart enthusiasm has endured over the years. Rather than setting up teammates on the court, Armstrong is now setting up clients off it, serving as an agent at Wasserman for players like Draymond Green, Derrick Rose and Josh Jackson. It's easy to see why players are drawn to him. With a delivery that's half John Calipari, half Denzel Washington from Training Day, Armstrong speaks with passion about the business of basketball. And with the rings (three) and seasons (13) to back it up, his words come with a certain weight.

Armstrong broke into the agent business in 2006 after a short stint as a special advisor and scout in the Bulls' front office. Since then, Armstrong has been using the same skills that made him an effective point guard to become an effective powerbroker in the NBA. He's helped his clients get drafted, sign contracts and endorsements and navigate the many problems NBA players navigate on a daily basis.

On whether his playing experience helps him as an agent: "It doesn't that much. You may go to a restaurant the first time because the chef was popular. But you're only going to come back if the food is good. People might say, 'Oh, B.J. Armstrong is an agent? I remember him.' But if the quality of the work isn't excellent, people aren't coming back. So I quickly realized that being B.J. Armstrong might have gotten me the meeting, but it won't help me achieve that I want to achieve in this business."

On how being a point guard translates to being an agent: "I grew up as a point guard, and as a point guard you learn how to navigate situations. Without communication, there can be no cooperation. I learned as a guard and a young kid that cooperation is more important than competition. The biggest thing I learned from Michael Jordan, when I met him, was how to communicate with him. Yao Ming was just on my podcast last week, Yao Ming said something that I learned as young kid but never knew how to articulate. I grew up in Detroit but went to a private Catholic school in the suburbs. I was living in two different worlds: the city of Detroit and the school where there were 5,000 kids and there were one or two people of color in the entire school. There was this world, and that world. Yao Ming said on my show that the first three years of your life, you learn how to talk. The rest of your life, you learn how to listen.

A longtime powerbroker in Guatemala has withdrawn his plea for asylum in the United States and will instead be deported to face criminal charges related to the Odebrecht corruption case in the Central American nation, which could pave the way for damning revelations that may implicate other elites.

3a8082e126