
This guide will explain how to set up Teleport with Mattermost, an open source messaging platform. Teleport's Mattermost notifies individuals of Access Requests. Users can then approve and deny Access Requests by following the message link, making it easier to implement security best practices without compromising productivity.
Prerequisites
-
A running Teleport Enterprise cluster, including the Auth Service and Proxy Service. For details on how to set this up, see our Enterprise Getting Started guide.
-
The Enterprise
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool version >= 12.1.1, which you can download by visiting the customer portal.tctl versionTeleport Enterprise v12.1.1 go1.19
tsh versionTeleport v12.1.1 go1.19
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.
- A Mattermost account with admin privileges. This plugin has been tested with Mattermost v7.0.1.
- Either a Linux host or Kubernetes cluster where you will run the Mattermost plugin.
To connect to Teleport, log in to your cluster using tsh
, then use tctl
remotely:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 12.1.1
CA pin sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678
You can run subsequent tctl
commands in this guide on your local machine.
For full privileges, you can also run tctl
commands on your Auth Service host.
To connect to Teleport, log in to your cluster using tsh
, then use tctl
remotely:
tsh login --proxy=myinstance.teleport.sh [email protected]tctl statusCluster myinstance.teleport.sh
Version 12.1.2
CA pin sha256:sha-hash-here
You must run subsequent tctl
commands in this guide on your local machine.
Step 1/8. Define RBAC resources
Before you set up the Mattermost plugin, you will need to enable Role Access Requests in the Proxy or Auth Service.
For the purpose of this guide, we will define an editor-requester
role, which
can request the built-in editor
role, and an editor-reviewer
role that can
review requests for the editor
role.
Create a file called editor-request-rbac.yaml
with the following content:
kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
name: editor-reviewer
spec:
allow:
review_requests:
roles: ['editor']
---
kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
name: editor-requester
spec:
allow:
request:
roles: ['editor']
thresholds:
- approve: 1
deny: 1
Create the roles you defined:
tctl create -f editor-request-rbac.yamlrole 'editor-reviewer' has been created
role 'editor-requester' has been created
Allow yourself to review requests by users with the editor-requester
role by
assigning yourself the editor-reviewer
role.
Assign the editor-reviewer
role to your Teleport user by running the following
commands, depending on whether you authenticate as a local Teleport user or via
the github
, saml
, or oidc
authentication connectors:
Retrieve your local user's configuration resource:
tctl get users/$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') > out.yaml
Edit out.yaml
, adding editor-reviewer
to the list of existing roles:
roles:
- access
- auditor
- editor
+ - editor-reviewer
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f out.yaml
Retrieve your github
configuration resource:
tctl get github/github --with-secrets > github.yaml
Edit github.yaml
, adding editor-reviewer
to the
teams_to_roles
section. The team you will map to this role will depend on how
you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest team
possible within your organization. This team must also include your user.
Here is an example:
teams_to_roles:
- organization: octocats
team: admins
roles:
- access
+ - editor-reviewer
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f github.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Retrieve your saml
configuration resource:
tctl get --with-secrets saml/mysaml > saml.yaml
Edit saml.yaml
, adding editor-reviewer
to the
attributes_to_roles
section. The attribute you will map to this role will
depend on how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the
smallest group possible within your organization. This group must also include
your user.
Here is an example:
attributes_to_roles:
- name: "groups"
value: "my-group"
roles:
- access
+ - editor-reviewer
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f saml.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Retrieve your oidc
configuration resource:
tctl get oidc/myoidc --with-secrets > oidc.yaml
Edit oidc.yaml
, adding editor-reviewer
to the
claims_to_roles
section. The claim you will map to this role will depend on
how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest
group possible within your organization. This group must also include your
user.
Here is an example:
claims_to_roles:
- name: "groups"
value: "my-group"
roles:
- access
+ - editor-reviewer
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f saml.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Log out of your Teleport cluster and log in again to assume the new role.
Create a user called myuser
who has the editor-requester
role. This user
cannot edit your cluster configuration unless they request the editor
role:
tctl users add myuser --roles=editor-requester
tctl
will print an invitation URL to your terminal. Visit the URL and log in
as myuser
for the first time, registering credentials as configured for your
Teleport cluster.
Later in this guide, you will have myuser
request the editor
role so you can
review the request using the Teleport plugin.
Step 2/8. Install the Teleport Mattermost plugin
We recommend installing Teleport plugins on the same host as the Teleport Proxy Service. This is an ideal location as plugins have a low memory footprint, and will require both public internet access and Teleport Auth Service access.
curl -L -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-access-mattermost-v12.1.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gztar -xzf teleport-access-mattermost-v12.1.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gzcd teleport-access-mattermost./install
To install from source you need git
and go
installed. If you do not have Go installed, visit the Go downloads page.
Checkout teleport-plugins
git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport-plugins.gitcd teleport-plugins/access/mattermostmake
Run ./install
from teleport-mattermost
or place the executable in the appropriate /usr/bin
or /usr/local/bin
on the server installation.
docker pull public.ecr.aws/gravitational/teleport-plugin-mattermost:12.1.1
To allow Helm to install charts that are hosted in the Teleport Helm repository, use helm repo add
:
helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev
To update the cache of charts from the remote repository, run helm repo update
:
helm repo update
Step 3/8. Create a user and role for the plugin
Teleport's Access Request plugins authenticate to your Teleport cluster as a user with permissions to list and read Access Requests. This way, plugins can retrieve Access Requests from the Teleport Auth Service and present them to reviewers.
Define a user and role called access-plugin
by adding the following content to
a file called access-plugin.yaml
:
kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
name: access-plugin
spec:
allow:
rules:
- resources: ['access_request']
verbs: ['list', 'read']
- resources: ['access_plugin_data']
verbs: ['update']
---
kind: user
metadata:
name: access-plugin
spec:
roles: ['access-plugin']
version: v2
Create the user and role:
tctl create -f access-plugin.yaml
As with all Teleport users, the Teleport Auth Service authenticates the
access-plugin
user by issuing short-lived TLS credentials. In this case, we
will need to request the credentials manually by impersonating the
access-plugin
role and user.
If you are using tctl
from the Auth
Service host, you will already have impersonation privileges.
To grant your user impersonation privileges for access-plugin
, define a role
called access-plugin-impersonator
by pasting the following YAML document into
a file called access-plugin-impersonator.yaml
:
kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
name: access-plugin-impersonator
spec:
allow:
impersonate:
roles:
- access-plugin
users:
- access-plugin
Create the access-plugin-impersonator
role:
tctl create -f access-plugin-impersonator.yaml
Assign the access-plugin-impersonator
role to your Teleport user by running the following
commands, depending on whether you authenticate as a local Teleport user or via
the github
, saml
, or oidc
authentication connectors:
Retrieve your local user's configuration resource:
tctl get users/$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') > out.yaml
Edit out.yaml
, adding access-plugin-impersonator
to the list of existing roles:
roles:
- access
- auditor
- editor
+ - access-plugin-impersonator
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f out.yaml
Retrieve your github
configuration resource:
tctl get github/github --with-secrets > github.yaml
Edit github.yaml
, adding access-plugin-impersonator
to the
teams_to_roles
section. The team you will map to this role will depend on how
you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest team
possible within your organization. This team must also include your user.
Here is an example:
teams_to_roles:
- organization: octocats
team: admins
roles:
- access
+ - access-plugin-impersonator
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f github.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Retrieve your saml
configuration resource:
tctl get --with-secrets saml/mysaml > saml.yaml
Edit saml.yaml
, adding access-plugin-impersonator
to the
attributes_to_roles
section. The attribute you will map to this role will
depend on how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the
smallest group possible within your organization. This group must also include
your user.
Here is an example:
attributes_to_roles:
- name: "groups"
value: "my-group"
roles:
- access
+ - access-plugin-impersonator
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f saml.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Retrieve your oidc
configuration resource:
tctl get oidc/myoidc --with-secrets > oidc.yaml
Edit oidc.yaml
, adding access-plugin-impersonator
to the
claims_to_roles
section. The claim you will map to this role will depend on
how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest
group possible within your organization. This group must also include your
user.
Here is an example:
claims_to_roles:
- name: "groups"
value: "my-group"
roles:
- access
+ - access-plugin-impersonator
Apply your changes:
tctl create -f saml.yaml
Note the --with-secrets
flag in the tctl get
command. This adds the value of
spec.signing_key_pair.private_key
to saml.yaml
. This is a sensitive value,
so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.
Log out of your Teleport cluster and log in again to assume the new role.
You will now be able to generate signed certificates for the access-plugin
role and user.
Step 4/8. Export the access plugin identity
Like all Teleport users, access-plugin
needs signed credentials in
order to connect to your Teleport cluster. You will use the tctl auth sign
command to request these credentials for your plugin.
The following tctl auth sign
command impersonates the access-plugin
user,
generates signed credentials, and writes an identity file to the local
directory:
tctl auth sign --user=access-plugin --out=auth.pem
Teleport's Access Request plugins listen for new and updated Access Requests by connecting to the Teleport Auth Service's gRPC endpoint over TLS.
The identity file, auth.pem
, includes both TLS and SSH credentials. Your
Access Request plugin uses the SSH credentials to connect to the Proxy Service,
which establishes a reverse tunnel connection to the Auth Service. The plugin
uses this reverse tunnel, along with your TLS credentials, to connect to the
Auth Service's gRPC endpoint.
You will refer to this file later when configuring the plugin.
By default, tctl auth sign
produces certificates with a relatively short
lifetime. For production deployments, you can use the --ttl
flag to ensure a
more practical certificate lifetime, e.g., --ttl=8760h
to export a one-year
certificate.
Step 5/8. Register a Mattermost bot
Now that you have generated the credentials your plugin needs to connect to your Teleport cluster, register your plugin with Mattermost so it can send Access Request messages to your workspace.
In Mattermost, click the menu button in the upper left of the UI, then click System Console → Integrations → Bot Accounts.
Set "Enable Bot Account Creation" to "true".

This will allow you to create a new bot account for the Mattermost plugin.
Go back to your team. In the menu on the upper left of the UI, click Integrations → Bot Accounts → Add Bot Account.
Set the "Username", "Display Name", and "Description" fields according to how you would like the Mattermost plugin bot to appear in your workspace. Set "Role" to "Member".
You can download our avatar to set as your Bot Icon.
Set "post:all" to "Enabled".

Click "Create Bot Account". We will use the resulting OAuth 2.0 token when we configure the Mattermost plugin.
Step 6/8. Configure the Mattermost plugin
At this point, you have generated credentials that the Mattermost plugin will use to connect to Teleport and Mattermost. You will now configure the Mattermost plugin to use these credentials and post messages in the right channels for your workspace.
The Mattermost plugin uses a config file in TOML format. On the host where you will run the Mattermost plugin, generate a boilerplate config by running the following commands:
teleport-mattermost configure > teleport-mattermost.tomlsudo mv teleport-mattermost.toml /etc
The Mattermost Helm Chart uses a YAML values file to configure the plugin. On
the host where you have Helm installed, create a file called
teleport-mattermost-helm.yaml
based on the following example:
teleport:
address: "myinstance.teleport.sh:443" # Teleport Cloud proxy HTTPS address
identitySecretName: teleport-plugin-mattermost-identity # Secret containing identity
mattermost:
url: https://mattermost.example.com/ # URL of the Mattermost instance
token: mattermosttoken # Mattermost token of the bot
recipients:
- "[email protected]" # User
- "team/example-channel" # Channel
log:
output: "stderr" # Logger output. Could be "stdout", "stderr" or "/var/lib/teleport/mattermost.log"
severity: "INFO" # Logger severity. Could be "INFO", "ERROR", "DEBUG" or "WARN".
Edit the configuration as explained below:
[teleport]
addr
: Include the hostname and HTTPS port of your Teleport Proxy Service
or Teleport Cloud tenant (e.g., teleport.example.com:443
or
mytenant.teleport.sh:443
).
identity
: Fill this in with the path to the identity file you exported
earlier.
client_key
, client_crt
, root_cas
: Comment these out, since we
are not using them in this configuration.
address
: Include the hostname and HTTPS port of your Teleport Cloud tenant
(e.g., teleport.example.com:443
).
identitySecretName
: Fill in the identitySecretName
field with the name
of the Kubernetes secret you created earlier.
[mattermost]
url
: Include the scheme (https://
) and fully qualified domain name of
your Mattermost deployment.
token
: Find your Mattermost bot's OAuth 2.0 token. To do so, visit
Mattermost. In the menu on the upper left of the UI, go to Integrations → Bot
Accounts. Find the listing for the Teleport plugin and click "Create New Token".
After you save the token, you will see a message with text in the format,
"Access Token: TOKEN". Copy the token and paste it here.
recipients
: This field configures the channels that the Mattermost plugin
will notify when it receives an Access Request message. The value is an array of
strings, where each element is either:
- The email address of a Mattermost user to notify via a direct message when the plugin receives an Access Request event
- A channel name in the format
team/channel
, where/
separates the name of the team and the name of the channel
For example, this configuration will notify [email protected]
and
the Town Square
channel in the myteam
team of any Access Request events:
recipients = [
"myteam/Town Square",
"[email protected]"
]
url
: Include the scheme (https://
) and fully qualified domain name of
your Mattermost deployment.
token
: Find your Mattermost bot's OAuth 2.0 token. To do so, visit
Mattermost. In the menu on the upper left of the UI, go to Integrations → Bot
Accounts. Find the listing for the Teleport plugin and click "Create New Token".
After you save the token, you will see a message with text in the format,
"Access Token: TOKEN". Copy the token and paste it here.
recipients
: This field configures the channels that the Mattermost plugin
will notify when it receives an Access Request message. The value is an array of
strings, where each element is either:
- The email address of a Mattermost user to notify via a direct message when the plugin receives an Access Request event
- A channel name in the format
team/channel
, where/
separates the name of the team and the name of the channel
For example, this configuration will notify [email protected]
and
the Town Square
channel in the myteam
team of any Access Request events:
recipients:
- "myteam/Town Square"
- [email protected]
You will need to invite your Teleport plugin to any channel you add to the
recipients
list (aside from direct message channels). Visit Mattermost,
navigate to each channel you want to invite the plugin to, and enter /invite @teleport
(or the name of the bot you configured) into the message box.

Users can also suggest reviewers when they create an Access Request, e.g.,:
tsh request create --roles=dbadmin [email protected],[email protected]
If an Access Request includes suggested reviewers, the Mattermost plugin will add these to the list of channels to notify. If a suggested reviewer is an email address, the plugin will look up the the direct message channel for that address and post a message in that channel.
If recipients
is empty, and the user requesting elevated privileges has not
suggested any reviewers, the plugin will skip forwarding the Access Request to
Mattermost.
The final configuration should look similar to this:
# example mattermost configuration TOML file
[teleport]
auth_server = "myinstance.teleport.sh:443" # Teleport Cloud proxy HTTPS address
identity = "/var/lib/teleport/plugins/mattermost/auth.pem" # Identity file path
[mattermost]
url = "https://mattermost.example.com" # Mattermost Server URL
token = "api-token" # Mattermost Bot OAuth token
recipients = [
"myteam/general",
"[email protected]"
]
[log]
output = "stderr" # Logger output. Could be "stdout", "stderr" or "/var/lib/teleport/mattermost.log"
severity = "INFO" # Logger severity. Could be "INFO", "ERROR", "DEBUG" or "WARN".
teleport:
address: "myinstance.teleport.sh:443" # Teleport Cloud proxy HTTPS address
identitySecretName: teleport-plugin-mattermost-identity # Secret containing identity
mattermost:
url: https://mattermost.example.com/ # URL of the Mattermost instance
token: mattermosttoken # Mattermost token of the bot
recipients:
- "[email protected]" # User
- "team/example-channel" # Channel
log:
output: "stderr" # Logger output. Could be "stdout", "stderr" or "/var/lib/teleport/mattermost.log"
severity: "INFO" # Logger severity. Could be "INFO", "ERROR", "DEBUG" or "WARN".
Step 7/8. Test your Mattermost bot
After modifying your configuration, run the bot with the following command:
teleport-mattermost start -d
The -d
flag provides debug information to make sure the bot can connect to
Mattermost, e.g.:
DEBU Checking Teleport server version mattermost/main.go:234
DEBU Starting a request watcher... mattermost/main.go:296
DEBU Starting Mattermost API health check... mattermost/main.go:186
DEBU Starting secure HTTPS server on :8081 utils/http.go:146
DEBU Watcher connected mattermost/main.go:260
DEBU Mattermost API health check finished ok mattermost/main.go:19
After modifying your configuration, run the bot with the following command:
helm upgrade --install teleport-plugin-mattermost teleport/teleport-plugin-mattermost --values teleport-mattermost-helm.yaml
To inspect the plugin's logs, use the following command:
kubectl logs deploy/teleport-plugin-mattermost
Debug logs can be enabled by setting log.severity
to DEBUG
in
teleport-mattermost-helm.yaml
and executing the helm upgrade ...
command
above again. Then you can restart the plugin with the following command:
kubectl rollout restart deployment teleport-plugin-mattermost
Create an Access Request
A Teleport admin can create an Access Request for another user with tctl
:
tctl request create myuser --roles=editor
Users can use tsh
to create an Access Request and log in with approved roles:
tsh request create --roles=editorSeeking request approval... (id: 8f77d2d1-2bbf-4031-a300-58926237a807)
Users can request access using the Web UI by visiting the "Access Requests" tab and clicking "New Request":

The users and channels you configured earlier to review the request should receive a message from "Teleport" in Mattermost allowing them to visit a link in the Teleport Web UI and either approve or deny the request.
Resolve the request
Once you receive an Access Request message, click the link to visit Teleport and approve or deny the request:

You can also review an Access Request from the command line:
Replace REQUEST_ID with the id of the request
tctl request approve REQUEST_IDtctl request deny REQUEST_ID
Replace REQUEST_ID with the id of the request
tsh request review --approve REQUEST_IDtsh request review --deny REQUEST_ID
When the Mattermost plugin posts an Access Request notification to a channel, anyone with access to the channel can view the notification and follow the link. While users must be authorized via their Teleport roles to review Access Requests, you should still check the Teleport audit log to ensure that the right users are reviewing the right requests.
When auditing Access Request reviews, check for events with the type Access Request Reviewed
in the Teleport Web UI and access_request.review
if reviewing the audit log on the
Auth Service host.
Step 8/8. Set up systemd
In production, we recommend starting the Teleport plugin daemon via an init system like systemd. Here's the recommended Teleport plugin service unit file for systemd:
[Unit]
Description=Teleport Mattermost Plugin
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/teleport-mattermost start --config=/etc/teleport-mattermost.toml
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
PIDFile=/run/teleport-mattermost.pid
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save this as teleport-mattermost.service
in either /usr/lib/systemd/system/
or
another unit file load
path
supported by systemd.
Enable and start the plugin:
sudo systemctl enable teleport-mattermostsudo systemctl start teleport-mattermost
Feedback
If you have any issues with this plugin, please create an issue on GitHub.