A system for managing access to resources in a plurality of servers by a plurality of client computers by using an operating system independent Secure Shell (SSH) protocol running in each server and using a central policy database that centrally stores access rules which specify access to the servers for a plurality of users/accounts. Each time a target server receives a user request to establish an SSH session, it retrieves associated access rules from the central policy database to obtain the latest access rules. Based on the retrieved rules and the identity of the user and the identity of the client computer, the target server determines whether the user has permission to establish the SSH session with the target server. Using a centralized database and requiring the servers to always retrieve the latest access rules from a central database provides consistent application of the access rules across all servers and all client computers.