Database Access with Elasticsearch

This guide will help you to configure secured access to an Elasticsearch database using Teleport Database Access.

Prerequisites

• A self-hosted Elasticsearch database. Elastic Cloud does not support client certificates, which are required for setting up Database Access.

• A host where you will run the Teleport Database Service. If you are already running the Teleport Database Service, you must ensure that it uses Teleport version 10.3 or newer in order to connect to Elasticsearch. This can also be the same instance of Teleport running your Auth and/or Proxy service(s).

  See Installation for details.

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  teleport.example.com
Version  12.1.1
CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

tsh login --proxy=myinstance.teleport.sh [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  myinstance.teleport.sh
Version  12.1.1
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

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 Teleport on the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service. Make sure you've selected your installation type (OSS, Enterprise, Cloud):

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 v12. 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/v12" \| 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 v12. 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/v12/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-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

dpkg -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent_12.1.1_$SYSTEM-ARCH.deb
Selecting previously unselected package teleport-ent.
(Reading database ... 30810 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack teleport-ent_12.1.1_$SYSTEM_ARCH.deb ...
Unpacking teleport-ent 12.1.1 ...
Setting up teleport-ent 12.1.1 ...

rpm -i ~/Downloads/teleport-ent-12.1.1.$SYSTEM-ARCH.rpm
warning: teleport-ent-12.1.1.$SYSTEM-ARCH.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA512 Signature, key ID 6282c411: NOKEY

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v12.1.1-linux-$SYSTEM-ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

Start the Teleport Database Service, pointing the --auth-server flag to the address of your Teleport Proxy Service:

teleport db start \  --token=/tmp/token \  --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3080 \  --name=myelastic \  --protocol=elastic \  --uri=elasticsearch.example.com:9200 \  --labels=env=dev

version: v3
teleport:
  auth_token: <insert token here>
  proxy_server: teleport.example.com

# disable services that are on by default
ssh_service: { enabled: no }
proxy_service: { enabled: no }
auth_service: { enabled: no }

# db service config
db_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  resources:
  - labels:
      "*": "*"
  databases:
  - name: myelastic
    protocol: elasticsearch
    uri: elasticsearch.example.com:9200
    static_labels:
      env: dev

Step 2/5. 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 3/5. Create a role mapping

Define a role mapping in Elasticsearch to assign your Teleport user(s) or role(s) to an Elasticsearch role. The example below maps the Teleport user alice to the user role in Elasticsearch.

curl -u elastic:your_elasticsearch_password -X POST "https://elasticsearch.example.com:9200/_security/role_mapping/mapping1?pretty" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{
  "roles": [ "user"],
  "enabled": true,
  "rules": {
    "field" : { "username" : "alice" }
  },
  "metadata" : {
    "version" : 1
  }
}
'

curl -u elastic:your_elasticsearch_password -X POST "https://elasticsearch.example.com:9200/_security/role_mapping/mapping1?pretty" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{
  "roles": [ "monitoring"],
  "enabled": true,
  "rules": {
    "field" : { "username" : "*@example.com" }
  },
  "metadata" : {
    "version" : 1
  }
}
'

Step 4/5. 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.

We will show you how to use tctl auth sign below.

To securely access your Elasticsearch database, sign the certificate for the hostname Teleport will connect to.

For example, if your Elasticsearch server is accessible at elastic.example.com, run:

tctl auth sign --format=elasticsearch --host=elastic.example.com --out=elastic --ttl=2160h
Database credentials have been written to elastic.key, elastic.crt, elastic.cas.

The command will create three files:

• elastic.cas with Teleport's certificate authority
• elastic.key with a generated private key
• elastic.crt with a generated host certificate

Use the generated secrets to enable mutual TLS in your elasticsearch.yml configuration file:

xpack.security.http.ssl:
  certificate_authorities: /path/to/elastic.cas
  certificate: /path/to/elastic.crt
  key: /path/to/elastic.key
  enabled: true
  client_authentication: required
  verification_mode: certificate

xpack.security.authc.realms.pki.pki1:
  order: 1
  enabled: true
  certificate_authorities: /path/to/elastic.cas

Once mutual TLS has been enabled, you will no longer be able to connect to the cluster without providing a valid client certificate. You can set xpack.security.http.ssl.client_authentication to optional to allow connections from clients that do not present a certificate, using other methods like username and password.

Step 5/5. Connect

Log into your Teleport cluster and see available databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                        Description Allowed Users Labels  Connect
--------------------------- ----------- ------------- ------- ------------------------
> myelastic (user: elastic)             [*]           env=dev tsh db connect myelastic

tsh login --proxy=mytennant.teleport.sh --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                        Description Allowed Users Labels  Connect
--------------------------- ----------- ------------- ------- ------------------------
> myelastic (user: elastic)             [*]           env=dev tsh db connect myelastic

To connect to a particular database instance:

tsh db connect myelastic --db-user=alice

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

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

Tunneled connection example

We can create a tunneled connection to Elasticsearch to use with GUI applications like Elasticvue:

tsh proxy db myelastic --db-user=alice --tunnel
Started authenticated tunnel for the Elasticsearch database "myelastic" in cluster "teleport.example.com" on 127.0.0.1:53657.
Use one of the following commands to connect to the database:
  * interactive SQL connection: 
  $ elasticsearch-sql-cli http://localhost:53657/
  * run single request with curl: 
  $ curl http://localhost:53657/

Note the assigned port, and provide it to your GUI client:

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.

• For more information on configuring security settings in Elasticsearch, see: Security settings in Elasticsearch