Creating Policies

Policies let you define rules that Troposphere continuously evaluates against your connected cloud resources. When a resource violates a policy, Troposphere generates an alert so your team can investigate and remediate.

Creating a policy#

Policies are created through a three-step wizard. The wizard narrows the available options at each step, so the only properties, operators, and values you see are ones that actually work for the providers you have selected.

1. Navigate to Policies > Manage in the sidebar and click New.
2. Step 1 – Providers. Select one or more cloud providers the policy should apply to, then click Next.
3. Step 2 – Property. Choose the resource property the policy will evaluate. The dropdown only lists properties supported by every provider selected in step 1, so cross-provider rules stay portable. Click Next.
4. Step 3 – Configure. Fill in the rule details:
   • Name – a short, descriptive label (for example, No SSH Port Open).
   • Severity – Critical, High, Medium, Low, or Info. Drives how violations are prioritised.
   • Description – a one-line explanation of what the policy checks.
   • Operator – the comparison to apply against the property. The available operators are filtered to those supported by the property you picked.
   • Value(s) – what to compare against. Depending on the operator and property, this appears as a single-select dropdown, a multi-select list, or a free-text field.
   • Enabled – toggle on to activate the policy immediately, or leave off to stage it before turning it on later.
5. Click Create Policy.

Severity levels#

Every policy carries a severity that determines how its violations are surfaced and how they rank against other alerts:

• Critical – top priority; address immediately.
• High – significant risk; address promptly.
• Medium – moderate risk; schedule remediation.
• Low – minor issue; address when convenient.
• Info – informational only; useful for auditing without generating noise.

Provider scoping#

A policy evaluates only the providers selected during step 1 of the wizard. Choosing a single provider gives you access to its full set of properties and operators. Choosing multiple providers restricts the property list to the intersection of what each provider supports, which keeps a single rule portable across the estate.

Filtering the policy list#

The Policies page supports filtering and sorting so you can find a specific rule quickly:

• Severity – narrow the list to a single severity level.
• Status – show only enabled or only disabled policies.
• Provider – show only policies scoped to a given provider.

Use the search field to filter by name or description.

Editing, enabling, and deleting#

Each row on the Policies page has an action menu with three options:

• Edit – opens the Edit Policy dialog so you can update the name, severity, description, operator, values, or enabled state. The provider scope and property are set at creation time and cannot be changed afterwards – create a new policy if you need to change them.
• Enable / Disable – turn a policy on or off without losing its configuration. Use this to temporarily suspend a rule during a change window or while investigating noise.
• Delete – permanently removes the policy. If you might reinstate the rule later, disable it instead so the configuration is preserved.