Scaling Privileged Access for Modern Infrastructure: Real-World Insights
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Teleport

Database Access with Cassandra and ScyllaDB

Version 15.x

Teleport can provide secure access to Cassandra or ScyllaDB via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.

In this guide, you will:

  1. Configure an Cassandra or ScyllaDB with mutual TLS authentication.
  2. Join the Cassandra or ScyllaDB database to your Teleport cluster.
  3. Connect to the Cassandra or ScyllaDB database via the Teleport Database Service.

Prerequisites

  • 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.

  • Self-hosted Cassandra or ScyllaDB instance.
  • The cqlsh Cassandra client installed and added to your system's PATH environment variable.
  • 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.

Step 1/5. Set up 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 and configure Teleport where you will run the Teleport Database Service:

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.

On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, start Teleport with the appropriate configuration.

Note that a single Teleport process can run multiple different services, for example multiple Database Service agents as well as the SSH Service or Application Service. The step below will overwrite an existing configuration file, so if you're running multiple services add --output=stdout to print the config in your terminal, and manually adjust /etc/teleport.yaml.

Generate a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml for the Database Service:

sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=teleport.example.com:443 \   --name=cassandra \   --protocol=cassandra \   --uri=cassandra.example.com:9042 \   --labels=env=dev 
sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \   --name=cassandra \   --protocol=cassandra \   --uri=cassandra.example.com:9042 \   --labels=env=dev

Configure the Teleport Database 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 Database Service.

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

sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

On the host where you will run the Teleport Database 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 Database Service with systemctl status teleport and view its logs with journalctl -fu teleport.

Teleport provides Helm charts for installing the Teleport Database Service in Kubernetes Clusters.

Set up the Teleport Helm repository.

Allow Helm to install charts that are hosted in the Teleport Helm repository:

helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev

Update the cache of charts from the remote repository so you can upgrade to all available releases:

helm repo update

Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.

JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)
helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \  --create-namespace \  --namespace teleport-agent \  --set roles=db \  --set proxyAddr=teleport.example.com:443 \  --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \  --set "databases[0].name=cassandra" \  --set "databases[0].uri=cassandra.example.com:9042" \  --set "databases[0].protocol=cassandra" \  --set "labels.env=dev" \  --version 15.2.2

Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.

JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)
helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \  --create-namespace \  --namespace teleport-agent \  --set roles=db \  --set proxyAddr=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \  --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \  --set "databases[0].name=cassandra" \  --set "databases[0].uri=cassandra.example.com:9042" \  --set "databases[0].protocol=cassandra" \  --set "labels.env=dev" \  --version 15.2.1

Make sure that the Teleport agent pod is running. You should see one teleport-kube-agent pod with a single ready container:

kubectl -n teleport-agent get pods
NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGEteleport-kube-agent-0   1/1     Running   0          32s
Tip

A single Teleport process can run multiple services, for example multiple Database Service instances as well as other services such the SSH Service or Application Service.

Step 2/5. Create a Teleport user

Tip

To modify an existing user to provide access to the Database Service, see Database Access Access Controls

Create a local Teleport user with the built-in access role:

tctl users add \  --roles=access \  --db-users=\* \  --db-names=\* \  alice

Create a local Teleport user with the built-in access and requester roles:

tctl users add \  --roles=access,requester \  --db-users=\* \  --db-names=\* \  alice
FlagDescription
--rolesList of roles to assign to the user. The builtin access role allows them to connect to any database server registered with Teleport.
--db-usersList of database usernames the user will be allowed to use when connecting to the databases. A wildcard allows any user.
--db-namesList of logical databases (aka schemas) the user will be allowed to connect to within a database server. A wildcard allows any database.
Warning

Database names are only enforced for PostgreSQL and MongoDB databases.

For more detailed information about database access controls and how to restrict access see RBAC documentation.

Step 3/5. Set up mutual TLS

Teleport uses mutual TLS authentication with self-hosted databases. These databases must be configured with Teleport's certificate authority to be able to verify client certificates. They also need a certificate/key pair that Teleport can verify.

If you are using Teleport Cloud, your Teleport user must be allowed to impersonate the system role Db in order to be able to generate the database certificate.

Include the following allow rule in in your Teleport Cloud user's role:

allow:
  impersonate:
    users: ["Db"]
    roles: ["Db"]

Follow the instructions below to generate TLS credentials for your database.

When connecting to Cassandra, sign the certificate for the hostname over which Teleport will be connecting to it.

tctl auth sign --format=cassandra --host=cassandra.example.com --out=server --ttl=2190h
TTL

We recommend using a shorter TTL, but keep mind that you'll need to update the database server certificate before it expires to not lose the ability to connect. Pick the TTL value that best fits your use-case.

The command will create two files:

  • server.keystore with generated private key and user certificate in JKS format.
  • server.truststore with Teleport's certificate authority in JKS format.

When connecting to Scylla, sign the certificate for the hostname over which Teleport will be connecting to it.

tctl auth sign --format=scylla --host=scylla.example.com --out=server --ttl=2190h
TTL

We recommend using a shorter TTL, but keep mind that you'll need to update the database server certificate before it expires to not lose the ability to connect. Pick the TTL value that best fits your use-case.

The command will create three files:

  • server.cas with Teleport's certificate authority
  • server.key with a generated private key
  • server.crt with a generated user certificate

Step 4/5. Configure Cassandra/Scylla

Follow the instructions for your database to enable TLS communication with your Teleport cluster:

To configure Cassandra to accept TLS connections, add the following to your Cassandra configuration file, cassandra.yaml:

client_encryption_options:
  enabled: true
  optional: false
  keystore: /path/to/server.keystore
  keystore_password: "password"
  require_client_auth: true
  truststore: /path/to/server.truststore
  truststore_password: "password"
  protocol: TLS
  algorithm: SunX509
  store_type: JKS
  cipher_suites: [TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA]

In the configuration above, replace "password" with the value generated in the previous step by the tctl auth sign command.

To configure Scylla to accept TLS connections, add the following to your Scylla configuration file, scylla.yaml:

client_encryption_options:
  enabled: true
  certificate: /path/to/server.crt
  keyfile: /path/to/server.key
  truststore:  /path/to/server.cas
  require_client_auth: True

Step 5/5. Connect

Once the Database Service has joined the cluster, log in to see the available databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name      Description       Allowed Users Labels  Connect
--------- ----------------- ------------- ------- -------
cassandra Cassandra Example [*]           env=dev
tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name      Description       Allowed Users Labels  Connect
--------- ----------------- ------------- ------- -------
cassandra Cassandra Example [*]           env=dev

To connect to a particular database instance :

tsh db connect --db-user=cassandra cassandra
Password:
Connected to Test Cluster at localhost:49594
[cqlsh 6.0.0 | Cassandra 4.0.5 | CQL spec 3.4.5 | Native protocol v5]
Use HELP for help.
cassandra@cqlsh>

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

Remove credentials for a particular database instance.
tsh db logout example
Remove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout

Next steps

  • Take a look at the YAML configuration reference.