Teleport

Database Access with Self-Hosted MySQL/MariaDB

Available for:
OpenSource
Team
Cloud
Enterprise

Teleport can provide secure access to MySQL or MariaDB via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.

In this guide, you will:

Configure an MySQL or MariaDB database with mutual TLS authentication.
Join the MySQL or MariaDB database to your Teleport cluster.
Connect to the MySQL or MariaDB database via the Teleport Database Service.

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

Prerequisites

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 >= 14.0.1.

See Installation for details.

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 >= 13.3.9.

You can download these tools from the Cloud Downloads page.

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 >= 14.0.1.

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

A self-hosted MySQL or MariaDB instance.
A host, e.g., an Amazon EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.
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  14.0.1
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 1/4. Create the Teleport Database Token

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

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.

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"]

From your local workstation, 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

In this example, db.example.com is the hostname where the Teleport Database Service can reach the MySQL server.

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. Copy these files to the environment running MySQL

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.

Create a new user:

CREATE 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'@'%';

Warning

This is an example command that grants database-wide permissions to a user. In a production environment you should follow the principle of least privilege

Because Teleport uses certificates to authenticate database users, the user must not have a password set. Note that removing an existing user's password may break existing integrations. Consider using a new Database user specifically for Teleport access.

Update the existing user to require a valid certificate:

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

Remove the password from the user:

SET PASSWORD FOR 'alice'@'%' = PASSWORD("");

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

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

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.

Configure and Start the Database Service

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

curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s 14.0.1

Add the Teleport repository to your repository list:

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 cloud.
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] \https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/${ID?} ${VERSION_CODENAME?} stable/cloud" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null

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

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

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

Install teleport
sudo dnf install teleport-ent-updater

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

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository for cloud.
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")

Install teleport
sudo zypper install teleport-ent-updater

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 name	Description
`stable/<major>`	Receives releases for the specified major release line, i.e. `v14`
`stable/cloud`	Rolling channel that receives releases compatible with current Cloud version
`stable/rolling`	Rolling channel that receives all published Teleport releases

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.

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