Teleport
Database Access with Cassandra and ScyllaDB
- Version 16.x
- Version 15.x
- Version 14.x
- Version 13.x
- Older Versions
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:
- Configure an Cassandra or ScyllaDB.
- Join the Cassandra or ScyllaDB database to your Teleport cluster.
- Connect to the Cassandra or ScyllaDB database via the Teleport Database Service.
How it works
The Teleport Database Service authenticates to your self-hosted Cassandra or ScyllaDB database using mutual TLS. Cassandra or ScyllaDB trusts the Teleport certificate authority for database clients, and presents a certificate signed by either the Teleport database CA or a custom CA. When a user initiates a database session, the Database Service presents a certificate signed by Teleport. The authenticated connection then proxies client traffic from the user.
Prerequisites
-
A running Teleport cluster version 15.2.4 or above. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.
-
The
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool.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 downloadingtctl
andtsh
for Teleport Community Edition.
- Self-hosted Cassandra or ScyllaDB instance.
- The
cqlsh
Cassandra client installed and added to your system'sPATH
environment variable. - To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with
tsh login
, then verify that you can runtctl
commands using your current credentials.tctl
is supported on macOS and Linux machines. For example:If you can connect to the cluster and run thetsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 15.2.4
CA pin sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678
tctl status
command, you can use your current credentials to run subsequenttctl
commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also runtctl
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:
-
Assign edition to one of the following, depending on your Teleport edition:
Edition Value Teleport Enterprise Cloud cloud
Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted) enterprise
Teleport Community Edition oss
-
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.comTELEPORT_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.comTELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/ping | jq -r '.server_version')" -
Install Teleport on your Linux server:
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s ${TELEPORT_VERSION} editionThe 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 teleportsudo 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.servicesudo systemctl enable teleportsudo 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=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=cassandra" \ --set "databases[0].uri=cassandra.example.com:9042" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=cassandra" \ --set "labels.env=dev" \ --version 15.2.4
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(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 15.2.2
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 podsNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEteleport-kube-agent-0 1/1 Running 0 32s
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
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
Flag | Description |
---|---|
--roles | List of roles to assign to the user. The builtin access role allows them to connect to any database server registered with Teleport. |
--db-users | List of database usernames the user will be allowed to use when connecting to the databases. A wildcard allows any user. |
--db-names | List of logical databases (aka schemas) the user will be allowed to connect to within a database server. A wildcard allows any database. |
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
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
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 authorityserver.key
with a generated private keyserver.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=alicetsh db lsName Description Allowed Users Labels Connect
--------- ----------------- ------------- ------- -------
cassandra Cassandra Example [*] env=dev
tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --user=alicetsh db lsName Description Allowed Users Labels Connect
--------- ----------------- ------------- ------- -------
cassandra Cassandra Example [*] env=dev
To connect to a particular database instance :
tsh db connect --db-user=cassandra cassandraPassword:
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 exampleRemove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout
Next steps
- Learn how to restrict access to certain users and databases.
- View the High Availability (HA) guide.
- Take a look at the YAML configuration reference.
- See the full CLI reference.