This guide will help you to:
- Set up Teleport to access your self-hosted PostgreSQL.
- Connect to your databases through Teleport.
Prerequisites
- A self-hosted PostgreSQL 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 versionTeleport 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 versionTeleport v9.2.3 go1.17
-
A host where you will install the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service.
-
A registered domain name.
-
The
tctl
andtsh
client tools version >= 9.1.2.You can download these from Teleport Cloud Downloads.
tctl versionTeleport v9.1.2 go1.17
tsh versionTeleport v9.1.2 go1.17
Verify that your Teleport client is connected by running the following on your Auth Service host:
tctl statusCluster 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 statusCluster 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 1/5. Set up the Teleport Auth and Proxy services
Teleport Database Access for PostgreSQL is available starting from the 6.0
release.
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.shtctl 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.ascAdd 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/nullsudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install teleport
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.teleport.dev/teleport.reposudo yum install teleportOptional: 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.gzshasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gzVerify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gzcd teleportsudo ./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.gzshasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gzVerify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm-bin.tar.gzcd teleportsudo ./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.gzshasum -a 256 teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gzVerify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v9.2.3-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gzcd teleportsudo ./install
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. |
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 2/5. 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 a generate certificate/key pair
for host db.example.com with a 1-year validity period.
tctl auth sign --format=db --host=db.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 3 files: server.cas
, server.crt
and server.key
which you'll need to enable mutual TLS on your PostgreSQL server.
Step 3/5. Configure your PostgreSQL server
To configure your PostgreSQL server to accept TLS connections, add the following
to the PostgreSQL configuration file, postgresql.conf
:
ssl = on
ssl_cert_file = '/path/to/server.crt'
ssl_key_file = '/path/to/server.key'
ssl_ca_file = '/path/toa/server.cas'
See Secure TCP/IP Connections with SSL in the PostgreSQL documentation for more details.
Additionally, PostgreSQL should be configured to require client certificate
authentication from clients connecting over TLS. This can be done by adding
the following entries to PostgreSQL's host-based authentication file pg_hba.conf
:
hostssl all all ::/0 cert
hostssl all all 0.0.0.0/0 cert
You should also ensure that you have no higher-priority md5
authentication
rules that will match, otherwise PostgreSQL will offer them first, and the
certificate-based Teleport login will fail.
See The pg_hba.conf File in the PostgreSQL documentation for more details.
Step 4/5. Start the Database Service
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, start Teleport with the appropriate configuration.
You can start the Teleport Database Service without configuration file using a CLI command:
teleport db start \ --token=/tmp/token \ --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3080 \ --name=test \ --protocol=postgres \ --uri=postgres.example.com:5432 \ --labels=env=dev
Note that the --auth-server
flag must point to the Teleport cluster's Proxy
Service endpoint because the Database Service always connects back to the
cluster over a reverse tunnel.
Generate a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml
for the Database Service:
teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --token=/tmp/token \ --proxy=teleport.example.com:3080 \ --name=test \ --protocol=postgres \ --uri=postgres.example.com:5432 \ --labels=env=dev
A single Teleport process can run multiple different services, for example multiple Database Service agents as well as the SSH Service or Application Service.
Start the database service:
teleport start --config=/path/to/teleport-db.yaml --token=/tmp/token
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=testusertsh db lsName Description Labels
------- ------------------ --------
example Example PostgreSQL env=dev
Note that you will only be able to see databases your role has access to. See RBAC section for more details.
To connect to a particular database server, first retrieve credentials from
Teleport using tsh db login
command:
tsh db login example
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=postgres --db-name=postgres example
Once logged in, connect to the database:
tsh db connect example
The psql
command-line client should be available in PATH
in order to be
able to connect.
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