Scaling Privileged Access for Modern Infrastructure: Real-World Insights
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Amazon Athena Access

Version 15.x

You can set up secure access to Amazon Athena using Teleport's support for the AWS CLI and Console.

This guide will help you to:

  • Install the Teleport Application Service.
  • Set up AWS CLI and Console access.
  • Connect to your Athena databases.

Prerequisites

  • AWS account with Athena databases.
  • IAM permissions to create IAM roles.
  • aws Command Line Interface (CLI) tool installed in PATH.
  • A host, e.g., an EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Application Service.

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

  • The tctl admin tool and tsh client tool version >= 15.2.2.

    On Teleport Enterprise, you must use the Enterprise version of tctl, which you can download from your Teleport account workspace. Otherwise, visit Installation for instructions on downloading tctl and tsh for Teleport Community Edition.

  • 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. tctl is supported on macOS and Linux machines. For example: 
    tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]
    tctl status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  15.2.2
    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.
Not yet a Teleport user?

If you have not yet deployed the Auth Service and Proxy Service, you should follow one of our getting started guides or try our Teleport application access interactive learning track.

We will assume your Teleport cluster is accessible at teleport.example.com and *.teleport.example.com. You can substitute the address of your Teleport Proxy Service. (For Teleport Cloud customers, this will be similar to mytenant.teleport.sh.)

Application Access and DNS

Teleport assigns a subdomain to each application you configure for Application Access. For example, if you enroll Grafana as a resource, Teleport assigns the resource to the grafana.teleport.example.com subdomain.

If you host the Teleport cluster on your own network, you should update your DNS configuration to account for application subdomains. You can update DNS in one of two ways:

  • Create a single DNS address (A) or canonical name (CNAME) record using wildcard substitution for the subdomain name. For example, create a DNS record with the name *.teleport.example.com.
  • Create a separate DNS address (A) or canonical name (CNAME) record for each application subdomain.

Modifying DNS ensures that the certificate authority—for example, Let's Encrypt—can issue a certificate for each subdomain and that clients can verify Teleport hosts regardless of the application they are accessing.

If you use the Teleport cloud platform, no DNS updates are needed because your Teleport cluster automatically provides the subdomains and signed TLS certificates for your applications under your tenant address.

Step 1/5. Create an IAM role for Athena access

Create an IAM role that provides access to your Athena resources. Teleport Application Service will assume this IAM role on behalf of the Teleport user that accesses these Athena resources.

There are several methods to create an IAM role:

Visit the Roles page of the AWS Console, then press "Create Role".

Select the "AWS account" option, which creates a default trust policy to allow other entities in this account to assume this role:

Press "Next". Find the AWS-managed policy AmazonAthenaFullAccess and then select the policy:

Press "Next". Enter role name ExampleTeleportAthenaRole and press "Create role":

Create a file with the following trust policy. Replace aws-account-id with your AWS Account ID:

cat > trust-relationship.json <<EOF{  "Version": "2012-10-17",  "Statement": [    {      "Effect": "Allow",      "Principal": {        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:root"      },      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"    }  ]}EOF

Create an IAM role with name ExampleTeleportAthenaRole:

aws iam create-role --role-name ExampleTeleportAthenaRole --assume-role-policy-document file://trust-relationship.json

Attach managed policy AmazonAthenaFullAccess to the role:

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ExampleTeleportAthenaRole --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonAthenaFullAccess

Add the following resources to your Terraform deployment. Replace aws-account-id with your AWS Account ID:

cat > teleport_iam_role_ExampleTeleportAthenaRole.tf <<EOFresource "aws_iam_role" "teleport-ExampleTeleportAthenaRole" {  name = "ExampleTeleportAthenaRole"  assume_role_policy = jsonencode({    Version = "2012-10-17"    Statement = [      {        Effect = "Allow"        Principal = {          AWS = "arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:root"        }        Action = "sts:AssumeRole"      },    ]  })}resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "teleport-ExampleTeleportAthenaRole-AmazonAthenaFullAccess" {  role       = aws_iam_role.teleport-ExampleTeleportAthenaRole.name  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonAthenaFullAccess"}EOF

Then terraform apply.

Apply least-privilege permissions

AmazonAthenaFullAccess may provide too much access for your intentions. To use a different IAM policy to reduce permissions, see Identity and access management in Athena for more details.

Step 2/5. Configure the Teleport IAM role mapping

Give your Teleport users permissions to assume IAM roles in your Teleport cluster.

You can do this by creating a Teleport role with the aws_role_arns field listing the IAM role ARN created in the previous step. Create a file called aws-athena-access.yaml with the following content:

cat > aws-athena-access.yaml <<EOFkind: roleversion: v5metadata:  name: aws-athena-accessspec:  allow:    app_labels:      '*': '*'    aws_role_arns:    - arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:role/ExampleTeleportAthenaRoleEOF

Remember to replace aws-account-id with your AWS Account ID.

The aws_role_arns field supports template variables so they can be populated dynamically based on your users' identity provider attributes. Here are some examples:

Use {{internal.aws_role_arns}} in the role definition:

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: aws-athena-access
spec:
  allow:
    app_labels:
      '*': '*'
    aws_role_arns: ['{{internal.aws_role_arns}}']

Then specify the IAM roles through user traits:

kind: user
version: v2
metadata:
  name: alice
spec:
  roles: ['aws-athena-access']
  traits:
    aws_role_arns: ['arn:aws:iam:123456789000:role/role_for_alice']
---
kind: user
version: v2
metadata:
  name: bob
spec:
  roles: ['aws-athena-access']
  traits:
    aws_role_arns: ['arn:aws:iam:123456789000:role/role_for_bob']

Let's assume that an IAM role has been created for each Teleport user, and the name of the IAM role corresponds to their Email addresses without the Email domain suffix.

Then aws_role_arns can be templated with external.email:

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: aws-athena-access
spec:
  allow:
    app_labels:
      '*': '*'
    aws_role_arns: ['arn:aws:iam:123456789000:role/{{email.local(external.email)}}']

See Role Templates for details.

Create the new role:

tctl create -f aws-athena-access.yaml

Assign the aws-athena-access 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?},aws-athena-access"

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

  1. Retrieve your github authentication connector:

    tctl get github/github --with-secrets > github.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the github.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the github.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit github.yaml, adding aws-athena-access to the teams_to_roles section.

    The team you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the team must include your user account and should be the smallest team possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      teams_to_roles:
    - organization: octocats
      team: admins
      roles:
        - access
+       - aws-athena-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f github.yaml

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

  1. Retrieve your saml configuration resource:

    tctl get --with-secrets saml/mysaml > saml.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the saml.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the saml.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit saml.yaml, adding aws-athena-access to the attributes_to_roles section.

    The attribute you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the group must include your user account and should be the smallest group possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      attributes_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - aws-athena-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f saml.yaml

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

  1. Retrieve your oidc configuration resource:

    tctl get oidc/myoidc --with-secrets > oidc.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the oidc.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the oidc.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit oidc.yaml, adding aws-athena-access to the claims_to_roles section.

    The claim you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the group must include your user account and should be the smallest group possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      claims_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - aws-athena-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f oidc.yaml

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

Step 3/5. Install the Teleport Application Service

Generate a token

A join token is required to authorize a Teleport Application Service instance to join the cluster. Generate a short-lived join token and save the output of the command:

tctl tokens add \    --type=app \    --app-name=aws \    --app-uri=https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/home

On the host where you will run the Teleport Application Service, copy the token to a file called /tmp/token.

non-standard AWS regions

Replace https://console.aws.amazon.com with https://console.amazonaws-us-gov.com for AWS GovCloud (US) regions or https://console.amazonaws.cn for AWS China regions.

Install and start Teleport

Install Teleport on the host where you will run the Teleport Application Service. See our Installation page for options besides Linux servers.

Install Teleport on your Linux server:

  1. Assign edition to one of the following, depending on your Teleport edition:

    EditionValue
    Teleport Enterprise Cloudcloud
    Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted)enterprise
    Teleport Community Editionoss

  2. Get the version of Teleport to install. If you have automatic agent updates enabled in your cluster, query the latest Teleport version that is compatible with the updater:

    TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com
    TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"

    Otherwise, get the version of your Teleport cluster:

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

  3. Install Teleport on your Linux server:

    curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s ${TELEPORT_VERSION} edition

    The installation script detects the package manager on your Linux server and uses it to install Teleport binaries. To customize your installation, learn about the Teleport package repositories in the installation guide.

Edit the Teleport configuration file (/etc/teleport.yaml) to include the following information, adjusting the value of proxy_server to specify the host and port of your Teleport Proxy Service:

version: v3
teleport:
  join_params:
    token_name: "/tmp/token"
    method: token
  proxy_server: "teleport.example.com:443"
auth_service:
  enabled: off
proxy_service:
  enabled: off
ssh_service:
  enabled: off
app_service:
  enabled: true
  apps:
  - name: aws
    uri: https://console.aws.amazon.com/home/home

Grant the Teleport Application Service access to credentials that it can use to authenticate to AWS. If you are running the Teleport Application Service on an EC2 instance, you may use the EC2 Instance Metadata Service method. Otherwise, you must use environment variables:

Teleport will detect when it is running on an EC2 instance and use the Instance Metadata Service to fetch credentials.

The EC2 instance should be configured to use an EC2 instance profile. For more information, see: Using Instance Profiles.

Teleport's built-in AWS client reads credentials from the following environment variables:

  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
  • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  • AWS_DEFAULT_REGION

When you start the Teleport Application Service, the service reads environment variables from a file at the path /etc/default/teleport. Obtain these credentials from your organization. Ensure that /etc/default/teleport has the following content, replacing the values of each variable:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=00000000000000000000
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=<YOUR_REGION>

Teleport's AWS client loads credentials from different sources in the following order:

  • Environment Variables
  • Shared credentials file
  • Shared configuration file (Teleport always enables shared configuration)
  • EC2 Instance Metadata (credentials only)

While you can provide AWS credentials via a shared credentials file or shared configuration file, you will need to run the Teleport Application Service with the AWS_PROFILE environment variable assigned to the name of your profile of choice.

If you have a specific use case that the instructions above do not account for, consult the documentation for the AWS SDK for Go for a detailed description of credential loading behavior.

Configure the Teleport Application Service to start automatically when the host boots up by creating a systemd service for it. The instructions depend on how you installed the Teleport Application Service.

On the host where you will run the Teleport Application Service, enable and start Teleport:

sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

On the host where you will run the Teleport Application Service, create a systemd service configuration for Teleport, enable the Teleport service, and start Teleport:

sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.service
sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

You can check the status of the Teleport Application Service with systemctl status teleport and view its logs with journalctl -fu teleport.

non-standard AWS regions

For non-standard AWS regions such as AWS GovCloud (US) regions and AWS China regions, please set the corresponding region in the AWS_REGION environment variable or in the AWS credentials file so that the Application Service can use the correct STS endpoint.

Step 4/5. Give Teleport permissions to assume roles

Next, attach the following policy to the IAM role or IAM user the Teleport Application Service instance is using, which allows the Application Service to assume the IAM roles:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}
Tip

You can make the policy more strict by providing specific IAM role resource ARNs in the "Resource" field instead of using a wildcard.

Step 5/5. Connect

Once the Application Service has started and joined the cluster, you can start connecting to your Athena database.

Using AWS Management Console

Log in to the Teleport Web UI at https://teleport.example.com (replace with your Proxy Service's public address).

Navigate to the Applications tab in your Teleport cluster's control panel and click on the Launch button for the AWS application. This will bring up an IAM role selector:

Click on the role ExampleTeleportAthenaRole and you will get redirected to the AWS Management Console, signed in with the selected role.

In the console's top-right corner, you should see that you're logged in through federated login and the name of your assumed IAM role is ExampleTeleportAthenaRole/<teleport-username> where the session name is your Teleport username.

Using AWS CLI

Log into the previously configured AWS app on your desktop:

tsh apps login --aws-role ExampleTeleportAthenaRole aws
Logged into AWS app aws. Example AWS CLI command:
tsh aws s3 ls

The --aws-role flag allows you to specify the AWS IAM role to assume when accessing the AWS API. You can either provide a role name like --aws-role ExampleTeleportDynamoDBRole or a full role ARN like arn:aws:iam::123456789000:role/ExampleTeleportAthenaRole.

Now you can use the tsh aws command like the native aws command-line tool:

tsh aws athena list-work-groups

To log out of the aws application and remove credentials:

tsh apps logout aws

Using other Athena applications

First, log into the previously configured AWS app if you haven't already done so:

tsh apps login --aws-role ExampleTeleportAthenaRole aws

Connect to Athena with the ODBC or JDBC driver:

Start a local HTTPS proxy:

tsh proxy aws --port 8443 --format athena-odbc
Started AWS proxy on http://127.0.0.1:8443.
Set the following properties for the Athena ODBC data source:[Teleport AWS Athena Access]AuthenticationType = IAM CredentialsUID = abcd1234-this-is-an-examplePWD = zyxw9876-this-is-an-exampleUseProxy = 1;ProxyScheme = http;ProxyHost = 127.0.0.1;ProxyPort = 8443;TrustedCerts = <local-ca-bundle-path>
Here is a sample connection string using the above credentials and proxy settings:DRIVER=Simba Amazon Athena ODBC Connector;AuthenticationType=IAM Credentials;UID=abcd1234-this-is-an-example;PWD=zyxw9876-this-is-an-example;UseProxy=1;ProxyScheme=http;ProxyHost=127.0.0.1;ProxyPort=8443;TrustedCerts=<local-ca-bundle-path>;AWSRegion=<region>;Workgroup=<workgroup>

Use the provided connection string in your Athena application with ODBC driver.

Start a local HTTPS proxy:

tsh proxy aws --port 8443 --format athena-jdbc
Started AWS proxy on http://127.0.0.1:8443.
First, add the following certificate to your keystore:<local-ca-bundle-path>
For example, to import the certificate using "keytool":keytool -noprompt -importcert -alias teleport-aws -file <local-ca-bundle-path> -keystore <keystore>
Then, set the following properties in the JDBC connection URL:User = abcd1234-this-is-an-examplePassword = zyxw9876-this-is-an-exampleProxyHost = 127.0.0.1;ProxyPort = 8443;
Here is a sample JDBC connection URL using the above credentials and proxy settings:jdbc:awsathena://User=abcd1234-this-is-an-example;Password=zyxw9876-this-is-an-example;ProxyHost=127.0.0.1;ProxyPort=8443;AwsRegion=<region>;Workgroup=<workgroup>

Follow the printed instructions to add the local certificate to your Java Keystore. The default Java Keystore is usually located at:

$ ls $(java -XshowSettings:properties -version 2>&1 | grep 'java.home' | awk '{print $3}')/lib/security/cacerts

Then use the provided JDBC connection URL for your Athena application with JDBC driver.

Start a local HTTPS proxy:

tsh proxy aws --port 8443 --format athena-jdbc
Started AWS proxy on http://127.0.0.1:8443.
First, add the following certificate to your keystore:<local-ca-bundle-path>
For example, to import the certificate using "keytool":keytool -noprompt -importcert -alias teleport-aws -file <local-ca-bundle-path> -keystore <keystore>
Then, set the following properties in the JDBC connection URL:User = abcd1234-this-is-an-examplePassword = zyxw9876-this-is-an-exampleProxyHost = 127.0.0.1;ProxyPort = 8443;
Here is a sample JDBC connection URL using the above credentials and proxy settings:jdbc:awsathena://User=abcd1234-this-is-an-example;Password=zyxw9876-this-is-an-example;ProxyHost=127.0.0.1;ProxyPort=8443;AwsRegion=<region>;Workgroup=<workgroup>

Note that DBeaver uses its own Java Keystore instead of the default one. For example, on macOS, the Keystore location is /Applications/DBeaver.app/Contents/Eclipse/jre/Contents/Home/lib/security/cacerts.

Follow Importing CA Certificates into DBeaver to setup the Keystore for DBeaver. Then follow the printed instruction from above tsh proxy aws command to add the local certificate to the Keystore.

Start DBeaver and add an "Athena" connection. Enter the username (AWS access key) and password (AWS secret key) from the tsh proxy aws output:

DBeaver main

Then fill in the ProxyHost and ProxyPort settings in "Driver properties":

DBeaver main

Click "Finish". Now you can connect to your Athena database.

useful environment variables

By default, tsh proxy aws generates random AWS credentials for local communication for best security and uses several placeholders in the generated instructions. The following environment variables can be set to overwrite those values:

  • TELEPORT_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: sets the local AWS access key.
  • TELEPORT_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: sets the local AWS secret key.
  • TELEPORT_AWS_REGION: sets the AWS region.
  • TELEPORT_AWS_KEYSTORE: sets the Java Keystore path.
  • TELEPORT_AWS_WORKGROUP: sets the Athena workgroup name.
Expired local certificate

tsh proxy aws generates a local certificate authority (CA) for local communication. The local CA may expire after a new tsh login session and a new CA will be generated. Make sure your Java Keystore is up-to-date by deleting the alias from your Keystore and adding it again.

To log out of the aws application and remove credentials:

tsh apps logout aws

Next steps