Control Gates

Storm Buckets Control Gates decide what you must prove before a dashboard action runs:
creating or deleting a bucket, rotating a key, opening a tool. You set
each action on its own. Find them under Control Gates in the
dashboard sidebar.

Your access keys and the S3 API are not affected. A key works the same
whatever you set here.

The five choices

Password is something you know, email code is your inbox, the
authenticator is your phone. They are three separate checks, and none
stands in for another.

If you pick Authenticator before you have set up an app, the Authenticator
card on the board links to setting one up. The action asks for it once you have.

The actions

Buckets: Create a bucket, Clear a bucket, Delete a bucket, Download
bucket data, Change CORS rules.

Bucket keys: Generate a non-admin bucket key, Attach an account key at admin,
Attach an account key, Detach an account key, Claim the first key on a keyless
bucket, Rotate a bucket admin key, Rotate a bucket key, Revoke a bucket key.

Account keys: Create an admin account key, Create an account key, Raise
an account key, Lower an account key, Rotate an admin account key, Rotate an
account key, Revoke an account key.

Tools: Use the Import tool, Use the Backup tool, Use the file
browser, Use Static Hosting.

Search the board by name, or narrow it by group and by check.

Defaults, and the limits

A new account changes nothing: nine actions ask for your password, and
everything else is Open. Raise any of them.

Nine actions never go below Password: claiming the first key on a
keyless bucket, attaching an account key, rotating a bucket key, raising an
account key, rotating an account key, and the four admin rows beside them.
Each of them hands out access. Lowering an account key has no floor: it
only takes reach away.

Nine actions cannot be Closed: claiming the first key, both rotates
and both admin rotates, lowering an account key, detaching an account key,
and both revokes. They are how you get back into a bucket or cut off a
leaked key, so turning them off could strand you. Attaching an account
key can be Closed, and so can the three ways to a new admin key
(creating one, raising a key, attaching at admin), so you can stop new
admin keys outright. Disabling the raise stops every raise, read-only to
read-write included.

Some rows read bucket admin secret key still asked. That check belongs to the
action itself and stays whatever you pick here. A gate adds to it,
never replaces it.

Saving changes

Every save asks for your password. Making a check weaker also asks for
the check you are leaving: moving an action off Authenticator asks for an
authenticator code. Opening an action again from Closed asks for the
strongest check your account has.

A weaker save signs out your other browsers. Raising a check signs out
nobody.

If the gates changed on another device while you were editing, the
save stops, the board reloads, and your edits stay on top for you to
check and save again.

One check per session

On by default. When you pass a check, the same check is not asked again
for an hour in that browser session. Rotating ten Read / Write keys
asks once.

• The hour counts from the check, not from your last click.

• Each check counts on its own. A password does not stand in for an
  authenticator code.

• Signing in does not count. Only a check you pass here does.

• Signing out, or your session ending, starts over.

• Any saved gate change starts over, on every device.

It never applies to admin keys or to saving Control Gates. Those
always ask.

Turn it off for a check every time. Turning it back on counts as making
things weaker, so it asks for your password and your strongest check. It
signs nobody out.

Tools

Each tool asks once, when you open it: Import, Backup, Static Hosting and
the file browser. Until you pass the check, nothing of the tool shows,
including its history. A tool then stays open while you work in it, and
asks again after 15 minutes without you using it. A run you started keeps
going while the tool is locked; open it again to see where it is.

When an action is Closed

Its button is greyed out and says why. A closed tool keeps its place in
the sidebar and on a bucket's tabs, wearing its Closed mark, and a click
does nothing until you open it again in Control Gates.

Asked for anyway, the action answers You closed this in Control Gates.
and nothing runs.

With Create a bucket closed, Import and Backup still work into
buckets you already have. They cannot make a new one.

Not covered

• Requests signed with your access keys, from the AWS CLI, rclone, a
  backup job or your own code. Keys are their own control: see
  Managing Access Keys.

• Signing in, and your account's sign-in security. Those live on your
  profile.