Database Access Getting Started Guide

In this getting started guide we will use Teleport Database Access to connect to a PostgreSQL AWS Aurora database.

Here's an overview of what we will do:

1. Configure an AWS Aurora database with IAM authentication.
2. Join the Aurora database to your Teleport cluster.
3. Connect to the Aurora database via the Teleport Database Service.

Prerequisites

• An AWS account with a PostgreSQL AWS Aurora database and permissions to create and attach IAM policies.
• A host, e.g., an EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.

Step 1/3. Set up Aurora

In order to allow Teleport connections to an Aurora instance, the instance needs to support IAM authentication.

If you don't have a database provisioned yet, create an instance of an Aurora PostgreSQL in the RDS control panel. Make sure to choose the "Standard create" database creation method and enable "Password and IAM database authentication" in the Database Authentication dialog.

For existing Aurora instances, the status of IAM authentication is displayed on the Configuration tab and can be enabled by modifying the database instance.

Next, create the following IAM policy and attach it to the AWS user or service account. The Teleport Database Service will need to use the credentials of this AWS user or service account in order to use this policy.

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
      {
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Action": [
             "rds-db:connect"
         ],
         "Resource": [
             "arn:aws:rds-db:<region>:<account-id>:dbuser:<resource-id>/*"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

This policy allows any database account to connect to the Aurora instance specified with resource ID using IAM auth.

Finally, connect to the database and create a database account with IAM auth support (or update an existing one). Once connected, execute the following SQL statements to create a new database account and allow IAM auth for it:

CREATE USER alice;
GRANT rds_iam TO alice;

For more information about connecting to the PostgreSQL instance directly, see the AWS documentation.

Step 2/3. Set up Teleport

Start the Auth Service and Proxy Service

teleport configure --acme [email protected] --cluster-name=tele.example.com > /etc/teleport.yaml

proxy_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  web_listen_addr: :443
  public_addr: tele.example.com:443
  acme:
    enabled: "yes"
    email: [email protected]

sudo teleport start

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  teleport.example.com
Version  11.3.1
CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

tsh login --proxy=myinstance.teleport.sh [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  myinstance.teleport.sh
Version  11.2.1
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

Start the Teleport Database Service

The Database Service requires a valid auth token to connect to the cluster. Generate one by running the following command against your Teleport Auth Service and save it in /tmp/token on the node that will run the Database Service:

tctl tokens add --type=db

Install Teleport on the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service:

Next, use the appropriate commands for your environment to install your package.

Download Teleport's PGP public key
sudo curl https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/gpg \-o /usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport APT repository for v11. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
Note: if using a fork of Debian or Ubuntu you may need to use '$ID_LIKE'
and the codename your distro was forked from instead of '$ID' and '$VERSION_CODENAME'.
Supported versions are listed here: https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/blob/master/build.assets/tooling/cmd/build-os-package-repos/runners.go#L42-L67
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] \https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/${ID?} ${VERSION_CODENAME?} stable/v11" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install teleport

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v11. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
Note: if using a fork of RHEL/CentOS or Amazon Linux you may need to use '$ID_LIKE'
and the codename your distro was forked from instead of '$ID'
Supported versions are listed here: https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/blob/master/build.assets/tooling/cmd/build-os-package-repos/runners.go#L133-L153
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo $(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v11/teleport.repo")
sudo yum install teleport
Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path
Optional:  Use DNF on newer distributions
$ sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.teleport.dev/teleport.repo
$ sudo dnf install teleport

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

dpkg -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent_11.3.1_
.deb
Selecting previously unselected package teleport-ent.
(Reading database ... 30810 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack teleport-ent_11.3.1_$SYSTEM_ARCH.deb ...
Unpacking teleport-ent 11.3.1 ...
Setting up teleport-ent 11.3.1 ...

rpm -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent-11.3.1.
.rpm
warning: teleport-ent-11.3.1.$SYSTEM-ARCH.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA512 Signature, key ID 6282c411: NOKEY

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-v11.3.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v11.3.1-linux-
-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v11.3.1-linux-
-fips-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v11.3.1-linux-
-fips-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v11.3.1-linux-
-fips-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

dpkg -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent_11.2.1_
.deb
Selecting previously unselected package teleport-ent.
(Reading database ... 30810 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack teleport-ent_11.2.1_$SYSTEM_ARCH.deb ...
Unpacking teleport-ent 11.2.1 ...
Setting up teleport-ent 11.2.1 ...

rpm -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent-11.2.1.
.rpm
warning: teleport-ent-11.2.1.$SYSTEM-ARCH.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA512 Signature, key ID 6282c411: NOKEY

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v11.2.1-linux-
-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v11.2.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.2.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-v11.2.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

On the node where you will run the Teleport Database Service, start Teleport and point it to your Aurora database instance. Make sure to update the database endpoint and region appropriately. The --auth-server flag must point to the address of your Teleport Proxy Service.

teleport db start \  --token=/tmp/token \  --name=aurora \  --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3080 \  --protocol=postgres \  --uri=postgres-aurora-instance-1.abcdefghijklm.us-west-1.rds.amazonaws.com:5432 \  --aws-region=us-west-1

Create a user and role

Create the role that will allow a user to connect to any database using any database account:

tctl create <<EOFkind: roleversion: v3metadata:  name: dbspec:  allow:    db_labels:      '*': '*'    db_names:    - '*'    db_users:    - '*'EOF

Create the Teleport user assigned the db role we've just created:

tctl users add --roles=access,db alice

Step 3/3. Connect

Now that Aurora is configured with IAM authentication, Teleport is running, and the local user is created, we're ready to connect to the database.

Log in to Teleport with the user we've just created.

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice

Now we can inspect available databases:

tsh db ls

Finally, connect to the database:

tsh db connect --db-user=alice --db-name postgres aurora

Troubleshooting

Certificate error

If your tsh db connect error includes the following text, you likely have an RDS database created before July 28, 2020, which presents an X.509 certificate that is incompatible with Teleport:

x509: certificate relies on legacy Common Name field, use SANs instead

AWS provides instructions to rotate your SSL/TLS certificate.

No credential providers error

If you see the error NoCredentialProviders: no valid providers in chain in Database Service logs then Teleport is not detecting the required credentials to connect via AWS IAM permissions. Check whether the credentials or security role has been applied in the machine running the Teleport Database Service.

Timeout errors

The Teleport Database Service needs connectivity to your database endpoints. That may require enabling inbound traffic on the database from the Database Service on the same VPC or routing rules from another VPC. Using the nc program you can verify connections to databases:

nc -zv postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com 5432
Connection to postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com (172.31.24.172) 5432 port [tcp/postgresql] succeeded!

Next Steps

For the next steps, dive deeper into the topics relevant to your Database Access use-case, for example:

• Check out configuration guides.
• Learn how to configure GUI clients.
• Learn about Database Access role-based access control.
• See frequently asked questions.