Database Access with Self-Hosted CockroachDB

This guide will help you to:

1. Install Teleport and connect it to a CockroachDB cluster.
2. Configure mutual TLS authentication between Teleport and your CockroachDB cluster.
3. Connect to your CockroachDB cluster via Teleport.

Prerequisites

• CockroachDB cluster.
• A host, e.g., an Amazon EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  teleport.example.com
Version  9.3.7
CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

tsh login --proxy=myinstance.teleport.sh [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  myinstance.teleport.sh
Version  9.3.8
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

Step 1/3. Install and configure Teleport

Set up the Teleport Auth and Proxy Services

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=mytenant.teleport.sh
tctl status

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

Download Teleport's PGP public key
sudo curl https://deb.releases.teleport.dev/teleport-pubkey.asc \  -o /usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc
Add the Teleport APT repository
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] https://deb.releases.teleport.dev/ stable main" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install teleport

sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.teleport.dev/teleport.repo
sudo yum install teleport
Optional:  Using 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-v9.3.7-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.3.7-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.3.7-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.3.7-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.3.7-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

teleport db start \  --token=/tmp/token \  --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3080 \  --name=roach \  --protocol=cockroachdb \  --uri=roach.example.com:26257 \  --labels=env=dev

teleport db start \  --token=/tmp/token \  --auth-server=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \  --name=roach \  --protocol=cockroachdb \  --uri=roach.example.com:26257 \  --labels=env=dev

Create a Teleport user

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

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

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

Step 2/3. Configure CockroachDB

Create a CockroachDB user

Teleport uses mutual TLS authentication with CockroachDB. Client certificate authentication is available to all CockroachDB users. If you don't have one, connect to your Cockroach cluster and create it:

CREATE USER alice WITH PASSWORD NULL;

The WITH PASSWORD NULL clause prevents the user from using password auth and mandates client certificate auth.

Make sure to assign the user proper permissions within the database cluster. Refer to Create User in the CockroachDB documentation for more information.

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.

To set up mutual TLS authentication, you need to make sure that:

• Teleport trusts certificates presented by CockroachDB nodes.
• CockroachDB trusts client certificates signed by Teleport.

Generate the secrets by running the following tctl command against your Teleport cluster:

tctl auth sign \    --format=cockroachdb \    --host=roach.example.com \    --out=/path/to/cockroach/certs/dir/ \    --ttl=2190h

The command will produce 3 files: ca.crt with Teleport's certificate authority and node.crt / node.key with the node's certificate and key. Do not rename them as this is how CockroachDB expects them to be named. See Node key and certificates for details.

Generate the secrets for each cluster node and make sure to use the hostname Teleport will be using to connect to the nodes in the --host flag.

Restart your CockroachDB nodes, passing them the directory with generated secrets via the --certs-dir flag:

cockroach start \    --certs-dir=/path/to/cockroachdb/certs/dir/ \    # other flags...

Step 3/3. Connect

Log in to your Teleport cluster. Your CockroachDB cluster should appear in the list of available databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name  Description         Labels
----- ------------------- -------
roach Example CockroachDB env=dev

tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name  Description         Labels
----- ------------------- -------
roach Example CockroachDB env=dev

Fetch short-lived client certificate for it using tsh db login command:

tsh db login roach

You can optionally specify the database name and the user to use by default when connecting to the database server:

tsh db login --db-user=alice roach

Now connect to the database:

tsh db connect roach

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

tsh db logout roach

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.

• CockroachDB client authentication