Teleport

Database Access with Self-Hosted MySQL/MariaDB

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This guide will help you to:

Install Teleport 9.2.3.
Set up Teleport to access your MySQL or MariaDB database.
Connect to your databases through Teleport.

Prerequisites

A self-hosted MySQL or MariaDB instance.
A host, e.g., an Amazon EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.

The tsh client tool version >= 9.2.3.
```
tsh version
Teleport v9.2.3 go1.17
```
See Installation for details.
A host where you will install the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service.
A registered domain name.

The tsh client tool version >= 9.2.3, which you can download by visiting the customer portal.
```
tsh version
Teleport v9.2.3 go1.17
```
A host where you will install the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service.
A registered domain name.

The tctl and tsh client tools version >= 9.1.2.

You can download these from Teleport Cloud Downloads.
```
tctl version
Teleport v9.1.2 go1.17
tsh version
Teleport v9.1.2 go1.17
```

Verify that your Teleport client is connected by running the following on your Auth Service host:

tctl status
Cluster  tele.example.com
Version  9.2.3
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

Remain logged in to your Auth Service host so you can run subsequent tctl commands in this guide.

To connect to Teleport, log in to your cluster using tsh, then use tctl remotely:

tsh login --proxy=myinstance.teleport.sh [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  myinstance.teleport.sh
Version  9.1.2
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

You must run subsequent tctl commands in this guide on your local machine.

Step 1/4. Set up the Teleport Auth and Proxy Services

Teleport Database Access for MySQL is available starting from Teleport version 6.0 and MariaDB starting from version 9.0.

On the host where you will run the Auth Service and Proxy Service, download the latest version of Teleport for your platform from our downloads page and follow the installation instructions.

Teleport requires a valid TLS certificate to operate and can fetch one automatically using Let's Encrypt's ACME protocol. Before Let's Encrypt can issue a TLS certificate for the Teleport Proxy host's domain, the ACME protocol must verify that an HTTPS server is reachable on port 443 of the host.

You can configure the Teleport Proxy service to complete the Let's Encrypt verification process when it starts up.

Run the following teleport configure command, where tele.example.com is the domain name of your Teleport cluster and [email protected] is an email address used for notifications (you can use any domain):

teleport configure --acme [email protected] --cluster-name=tele.example.com > /etc/teleport.yaml

The --acme, --acme-email, and --cluster-name flags will add the following settings to your Teleport configuration file:

proxy_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  web_listen_addr: :443
  public_addr: tele.example.com:443
  acme:
    enabled: "yes"
    email: [email protected]

Port 443 on your Teleport Proxy Service host must allow traffic from all sources.

Next, start the Teleport Auth and Proxy Services:

sudo teleport start

You will run subsequent tctl commands on the host where you started the Auth and Proxy Services.

If you do not have a Teleport Cloud account, use our signup form to get started. Teleport Cloud manages instances of the Proxy Service and Auth Service, and automatically issues and renews the required TLS certificate.

You must log in to your cluster before you can run tctl commands.

tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh
tctl status

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-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

Step 2/4. Create a certificate/key pair

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.

Create the secrets:

Export Teleport's certificate authority and generate certificate/key pair
for host db.example.com with a 3-month validity period.
tctl auth sign --format=db --host=db.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 3 files: server.cas, server.crt and server.key which you'll need to enable mutual TLS on your MySQL server.

Step 3/4. Configure MySQL/MariaDB

To configure MySQL to accept TLS connections, add the following to your MySQL configuration file, mysql.cnf:

[mysqld]
require_secure_transport=ON
ssl-ca=/path/to/server.cas
ssl-cert=/path/to/server.crt
ssl-key=/path/to/server.key

To configure MariaDB to accept TLS connections, add the following to your MariaDB configuration file, mysql.cnf:

[mariadb]
require_secure_transport=ON
ssl-ca=/path/to/server.cas
ssl-cert=/path/to/server.crt
ssl-key=/path/to/server.key

Additionally, your MySQL/MariaDB database user accounts must be configured to require a valid client certificate. If you're creating a new user:

CREATE USER 'alice'@'%' REQUIRE SUBJECT '/CN=alice';

If you're updating an existing user:

ALTER USER 'alice'@'%' REQUIRE SUBJECT '/CN=alice';

By default, the created user may not have access to anything and won't be able to connect, so let's grant it some permissions:

GRANT ALL ON `%`.* TO 'alice'@'%';

See Configuring MySQL to Use Encrypted Connections in the MySQL documentation or Enabling TLS on MariaDB Server in the MariaDB documentation for more details.

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

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.

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.

Start the Database Service

You can configure Teleport to start the Database Service and access MySQL or MariaDB by running the teleport daemon either with CLI flags or a configuration file.

On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, run the following command:

teleport db start \   --token=/tmp/token \   --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3080 \   --name=test \   --protocol=mysql \   --uri=mysql.example.com:3306 \   --labels=env=dev

Note that the --auth-server flag must point to the Teleport cluster's Proxy Service endpoint because Database Service always connects back to the cluster over a reverse tunnel.

On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, create a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml:

teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=teleport.example.com:3080 \   --name=test \   --protocol=mysql \   --uri=mysql.example.com:3306 \   --labels=env=dev

Tip

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

Start the Database Service:

teleport start --config=/path/to/teleport-db.yaml --token=/tmp/token

Step 4/4. Connect

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

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=testuser
tsh db ls
Name    Description   Labels
------- ------------- --------
example Example MySQL env=dev

Note that you will only be able to see databases your role has access to. See the RBAC guide for more details.

To connect to a particular database server, first retrieve credentials from Teleport using the tsh db login command:

tsh db login example

Tip

You can be logged in to multiple databases simultaneously.

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

tsh db login --db-user=root --db-name=mysql example

Once logged in, connect to the database:

tsh db connect example

Note

The mysql or mariadb command-line client should be available in PATH in order to be able to connect. mariadb is a default command-line client for MySQL and MariaDB.

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

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