Skip to main content
Version: 17.x

Set Up Login Rules

Report an issue with this page

Login Rules define logic that transforms the external traits of a user who signs into Teleport, providing consistent access control policies for users in your cluster. A Teleport administrator can use Login Rules to define transformations in user traits without requiring changes in their IdP configuration. This is particularly useful if the team that manages an organization's identity provider (IdP) is separate from the team that manages Teleport.

This guide walks you through the process of writing, testing, and adding the first Login Rule to your Teleport cluster.

How it works​

A Login Rule is a dynamic Teleport resource stored on the Auth Service backend. When a user authenticates to Teleport through an IdP, Teleport populates the user's external traits based on data from the IdP. Login Rules define logic for manipulating a user's external traits. When a user signs into Teleport, the Teleport Auth Service executes Login Rules in order of priority. After executing all Login Rules the Auth Service encodes the final set of external traits in the certificates that it issues to the user.

For more information about configuring Login Rules, see the Login Rules Reference.

Prerequisites​

  • A running Teleport Enterprise cluster. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl and tsh clients.

    Installing tctl and tsh clients

    1. Determine the version of your Teleport cluster. The tctl and tsh clients must be at most one major version behind your Teleport cluster version. Send a GET request to the Proxy Service at /v1/webapi/find and use a JSON query tool to obtain your cluster version:

      TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com:443
      TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl -s https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/find | jq -r '.server_version')"

    2. Follow the instructions for your platform to install tctl and tsh clients:

      Download the signed macOS .pkg installer for Teleport, which includes the tctl and tsh clients:

      curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-${TELEPORT_VERSION?}.pkg

      In Finder double-click the pkg file to begin installation.

      danger

      Using Homebrew to install Teleport is not supported. The Teleport package in Homebrew is not maintained by Teleport and we can't guarantee its reliability or security.

  • To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with tsh login, then verify that you can run tctl commands using your current credentials. For example, run the following command, assigning teleport.example.com to the domain name of the Teleport Proxy Service in your cluster and [email protected] to your Teleport username: 
    tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]
    tctl status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  17.7.1
    CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678
    If you can connect to the cluster and run the tctl status command, you can use your current credentials to run subsequent tctl commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also run tctl commands on the computer that hosts the Teleport Auth Service for full permissions.

Before you get started you’ll need a running Teleport Enterprise or Cloud cluster on version 11.3.1 or greater.

Login Rules only operate on SSO logins, so make sure you have configured an OIDC, SAML, or GitHub connector before you begin. Check the Single Sign-On docs to learn how to set this up.

Step 1/5. Configure RBAC​

First, ensure you are logged into Teleport as a user that has permissions to read and modify login_rule resources. The preset editor role has access to this already, but in case you are using a more customized configuration, create a role called loginrule-manager.yaml with the following contents:

kind: role
metadata:
  name: loginrule-manager
spec:
  allow:
    rules:
      - resources: [login_rule]
        verbs: [list, create, read, update, delete]
version: v7

Create the role with tctl:

tctl create loginrule-manager.yaml
role 'loginrule-manager' has been created
tip

You can also create and edit roles using the Web UI. Go to Access -> Roles and click Create New Role or pick an existing role to edit.

Assign the loginrule-manager role to your Teleport user by running the appropriate commands for your authentication provider:

  1. Retrieve your local user's roles as a comma-separated list:

    ROLES=$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.roles | join(",")')

  2. Edit your local user to add the new role:

    tctl users update $(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') \  --set-roles "${ROLES?},loginrule-manager"

  3. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

Step 2/5. Draft your Login Rule resource​

The following example will give all users a new logins trait set to the value of their current username trait converted to lowercase. Copy this example rule to a file called my_rule.yaml to continue with the guide.

# my_rule.yaml
kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  # Each Login Rule must have a unique name within the cluster.
  name: my_rule

  # expires is optional and usually should not be set for deployed login
  # rules, but it can be useful to set an expiry a short time in the future
  # while testing new Login Rules to prevent potentially locking yourself out of
  # your Teleport cluster.
  # expires: "2023-01-31T00:00:00-00:00"
spec:
  # priority orders the evaluation of Login Rules if multiple are present in the
  # cluster, lower priorities are evaluated first.
  priority: 0

  # traits_expression is a predicate expression which will be evaluated to
  # determine the final traits for each SSO user during login.
  #
  # This example expression sets the "logins" trait to the incoming "username"
  # trait converted to lowercase.
  traits_expression: 'external.put("logins", strings.lower(external["username"]))'

Each Login Rule resource must have either a traits_map or traits_expression field. In this guide we will use an example traits_expression.

The traits_expression is a form of script which will be evaluated by your Teleport cluster at runtime to determine the traits for each SSO user who logs in. The expression can access the incoming traits for the user via the external variable. The external variable is a dictionary which maps trait keys to sets of values for that trait.

Step 3/5. Test the Login Rule​

The tctl login_rule test command can be used to experiment with new Login Rules to check their syntax and see exactly how they will operate on example incoming traits.

Fetch your user's current traits and store them in input.json, then test your new Login Rule with that input.

tctl get --format json users/username | jq 'first.spec.traits' > input.json
tctl login_rule test --resource-file my_rule.yaml input.json
access:- staginggroups:- dbs- devslogins:- alice

This script will catch any syntax errors in your expressions. Make sure that all expected traits are present in the output.

Step 4/5. Create the Login Rule​

Use the following command to create the Login Rule in your cluster:

tctl create my_rule.yaml

Step 5/5. Try it out​

As a final step, log out of your cluster, then log in again and make sure your user received the expected traits and roles. You can check the traits and roles with the following command:

tctl get --format json users/username | jq '{traits: first.spec.traits, roles: first.spec.roles}'
{  "traits": {    "access": [      "staging"    ],    "groups": [      "dbs",      "devs"    ],    "logins": [      "alice"    ]  },  "roles": [    "access",    "editor",    "auditor"  ]}

Troubleshooting​

The tctl sso test command can be used to debug SSO logins and see exactly which traits are being sent by your SSO provider and how they are being mapped by your Login Rules.

tctl sso test expects a connector spec. Run the following command to debug with a connector currently installed in your cluster, replacing SSO connector name with the name of the SSO connector you registered with Teleport:

tctl get connector/SSO connector name --with-secrets | tctl sso test

Next steps​

To learn more about the Login Rule expression syntax, check out the Login Rule Reference page.

Learn about the tctl login_rule test command by running the help command or checking the reference page.

tctl help login_rule test

The following tctl resource commands are helpful for viewing and modifying the login rules currently installed in your cluster.

CommandDescription
tctl get login_rulesShow all Login Rules installed in your cluster.
tctl get login_rule/<rule_name>Get a specific installed Login Rule.
tctl create login_rule.yamlInstall a new Login Rule.
tctl create -f login_rule.yamlOverwrite an existing Login Rule.
tctl rm login_rule/<rule_name>Delete a Login Rule.

Example Login Rules​

Set a trait to a static list of values defined per group​

kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: example
spec:
  priority: 0
  traits_expression: |
    external.put("allow-env",
      choose(
        option(external.group.contains("dev"), set("dev", "staging")),
        option(external.group.contains("qa"), set("qa", "staging")),
        option(external.group.contains("admin"), set("dev", "qa", "staging", "prod")),
        option(true, set()),
      ))

Use only specific traits provided by the OIDC/SAML provider​

To only keep the groups and email traits, with their original values:

kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: example
spec:
  priority: 0
  traits_map:
    groups:
      - external.groups
    email:
      - external.email

Remove a specific trait​

To remove a specific trait and keep the rest:

kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: example
spec:
  priority: 0
  traits_expression: |
    external.remove("big-trait")

Extend a specific trait with extra values​

kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: example
spec:
  priority: 0
  traits_expression: |
    external.add_values("logins", "ubuntu", "ec2-user")

Use the output of one Login Rule in another rule​

kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: set_groups
spec:
  priority: 0
  traits_expression: |
    external.put("groups",
      ifelse(external.groups.contains("admins"),
        external["groups"].add("superusers"),
        external["groups"]))
---
kind: login_rule
version: v1
metadata:
  name: set_logins
spec:
  priority: 1
  traits_expression: |
    ifelse(external.groups.contains("superusers"),
      external.add_values("logins", "root"),
      external)