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Database Access with Cassandra and ScyllaDB

Version 14.x
  • Available for:
  • OpenSource
  • Team
  • Cloud
  • Enterprise

Database access for Cassandra & ScyllaDB is available starting from Teleport v11.0.

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.
Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

Prerequisites

  • A Teleport Team account. If you don't have an account, sign up to begin your free trial.

  • The Enterprise tctl admin tool and tsh client tool, version >= 14.0.0.

    You can download these tools by visiting your Teleport account workspace.

  • A running Teleport cluster. For details on how to set this up, see the Getting Started guide.

  • The tctl admin tool and tsh client tool version >= 14.0.0.

    See Installation for details.

  • A running Teleport Enterprise cluster. For details on how to set this up, see the Enterprise Getting Started guide.

  • The Enterprise tctl admin tool and tsh client tool version >= 14.0.0.

    You can download these tools by visiting your Teleport account workspace.

Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

To check version information, run the tctl version and tsh version commands. For example:

tctl version
Teleport Enterprise v13.3.9 git:api/14.0.0-gd1e081e go1.21

tsh version
Teleport v13.3.9 go1.21
Proxy version: 13.3.9Proxy: teleport.example.com
  • 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 on your administrative workstation using your current credentials. For example: 
    tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]
    tctl status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  14.0.0
    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:

Select an edition, then follow the instructions for that edition to install Teleport.

Teleport Edition

Teleport Team
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s 13.3.9

Before installing a teleport binary with a version besides v13, read our compatibility rules to ensure that the binary is compatible with Teleport Cloud.

When running multiple teleport binaries within a cluster, the following rules apply:

  • Patch and minor versions are always compatible, for example, any 8.0.1 component will work with any 8.0.3 component and any 8.1.0 component will work with any 8.3.0 component.
  • Servers support clients that are 1 major version behind, but do not support clients that are on a newer major version. For example, an 8.x.x Proxy Service is compatible with 7.x.x resource services and 7.x.x tsh, but we don't guarantee that a 9.x.x resource service will work with an 8.x.x Proxy Service. This also means you must not attempt to upgrade from 6.x.x straight to 8.x.x. You must upgrade to 7.x.x first.
  • Proxy Services and resource services do not support Auth Services that are on an older major version, and will fail to connect to older Auth Services by default. This behavior can be overridden by passing --skip-version-check when starting Proxy Services and resource services.
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s 14.0.0
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 v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] \https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/${ID?} ${VERSION_CODENAME?} stable/v14" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install teleport-ent

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo apt-get install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v14/teleport.repo")"
sudo yum install teleport-ent
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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use zypper to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh --repo $(rpm --eval "https://zypper.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/cloud/teleport-zypper.repo")
sudo yum install teleport-ent
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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use the dnf config manager plugin to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v14/teleport.repo")"

Install teleport
sudo dnf install teleport-ent

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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo dnf install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use Zypper to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh --repo $(rpm --eval "https://zypper.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v14/teleport-zypper.repo")

Install teleport
sudo zypper install teleport-ent

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo zypper install teleport-ent-fips

In the example commands below, update $SYSTEM_ARCH with the appropriate value (amd64, arm64, or arm). All example commands using this variable will update after one is filled out.

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations of Teleport Enterprise, package URLs will be slightly different:

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v14.0.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

OS repository channels

The following channels are available for APT, YUM, and Zypper repos. They may be used in place of stable/v14 anywhere in the Teleport documentation.

Channel nameDescription
stable/<major>Receives releases for the specified major release line, i.e. v14
stable/cloudRolling channel that receives releases compatible with current Cloud version
stable/rollingRolling channel that receives all published Teleport releases
Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

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.

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

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 14.0.0

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 13.3.9

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 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
Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

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

  • See the YAML configuration reference for updating dynamic resource matchers or static database definitions.