Teleport

Database Access with AWS RDS and Aurora for PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB

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This guide will help you to:

Install Teleport 11.1.0.
Set up Teleport to access your RDS instances and Aurora clusters.
Connect to your databases through Teleport.

Supported versions

The following products are not compatible with Database Access as they don't support IAM authentication:

Aurora Serverless v1.
RDS MariaDB versions lower than 10.6.

It is recommended to upgrade Aurora Serverless v1 to Aurora Serverless v2 which does support IAM authentication.

Prerequisites

AWS account with RDS and Aurora databases and permissions to create and attach IAM policies.
A host, e.g., an EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.

The tctl and tsh client tools version >= 11.1.0.
```
tctl version
Teleport v11.1.0 go1.19
tsh version
Teleport v11.1.0 go1.19
```
See Installation for details.
A host where you will install the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service.
A registered domain name.

The tctl and tsh client tools version >= 11.1.0, which you can download by visiting the customer portal.
```
tctl version
Teleport v11.1.0 go1.19
tsh version
Teleport v11.1.0 go1.19
```
A host where you will install the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service.
A registered domain name.

The tctl and tsh client tools version >= 10.3.8.

You can download these from Teleport Cloud Downloads.
```
tctl version
Teleport v10.3.8 go1.19
tsh version
Teleport v10.3.8 go1.19
```

Step 1/7. Install Teleport

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]le.com --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

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.

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

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]
tctl status
Cluster  teleport.example.com
Version  11.1.0
CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

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

For full privileges, you can also run tctl commands on your Auth Service host.

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  10.3.8
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

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

Step 2/7. Create a Teleport user

Tip

To modify an existing user to provide access to the Database Access 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

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.

Step 3/7. Create a Database Service configuration

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://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 v11. 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/v11" \ | 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 v11. 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/v11/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:  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-v11.1.0-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.1.0-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.1.0-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v11.1.0-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xzf teleport-v11.1.0-linux-arm64-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport
sudo ./install

Using this APT repo may result in breaking upgrades upon "apt upgrade" as all major versions will be
published under the same component. We recommend following the instructions in the
"Debian/Ubuntu (DEB)" tab instead.
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

Create the Database Service configuration:

teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --proxy=teleport.example.com:3080 \   --token=/tmp/token \   --rds-discovery=us-west-1

The command will generate a Database Service configuration with RDS/Aurora database auto-discovery enabled on the us-west-1 region and place it at the /etc/teleport.yaml location.

Step 4/7. Create an IAM policy for Teleport

Teleport needs AWS IAM permissions to be able to:

Discover and register RDS instances and Aurora clusters.
Configure IAM authentication for them.

Teleport can bootstrap IAM permissions for the Database Service based on its configuration using the teleport db configure bootstrap command. You can use this command in automatic or manual mode:

In automatic mode, Teleport will attempt to create appropriate IAM policies and attach them to the specified IAM identity (user or role). This requires IAM permissions to create and attach IAM policies.
In manual mode, Teleport will print required IAM policies. You can then create and attach them manually using the AWS management console.

AWS credentials

AWS Credentials are only required if you’re running the command in "automatic" mode. The command uses the default credential provider chain to find AWS credentials. See Specifying Credentials for more information.

Run one of the following commands on your Database Service node:

Use this command to bootstrap the permissions automatically when your Teleport Database Service runs as an IAM user (for example, uses an AWS credentials file).

teleport db configure bootstrap -c /etc/teleport.yaml --attach-to-user TeleportUser

Use this command to bootstrap the permissions automatically when your Teleport Database Service runs as an IAM role (for example, on an EC2 instance with an attached IAM role).

teleport db configure bootstrap -c /etc/teleport.yaml --attach-to-role TeleportRole

Use this command to display required IAM policies which you will then create in your AWS console:

teleport db configure bootstrap -c /etc/teleport.yaml --manual

See the full bootstrap command reference.

Step 5/7. Start the Database Service

Start the Database Service:

teleport start --config=/etc/teleport.yaml

The Database Service will discover all RDS instances and Aurora clusters according to the configuration and register them in the cluster. In addition to the primary endpoints of the discovered Aurora clusters, their reader and custom endpoints will also be registered.

The Database Service will also attempt to enable IAM auth and configure IAM access policies for the discovered databases. Keep in mind that AWS IAM changes may not propagate immediately and can take a few minutes to come into effect.

AWS credentials

The Teleport Database Service uses the default credential provider chain to find AWS credentials. See Specifying Credentials for more information.

Step 6/7. Create a database IAM user

Database users must allow IAM authentication in order to be used with Database Access for RDS. See below how to enable it for your database engine.

PostgreSQL users must have a rds_iam role:

CREATE USER alice;
GRANT rds_iam TO alice;

MySQL and MariaDB users must have the RDS authentication plugin enabled:

CREATE USER alice IDENTIFIED WITH AWSAuthenticationPlugin AS 'RDS';

Created user may not have access to anything by default so let's grant it some permissions:

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

See Creating a database account using IAM authentication for more information.

Step 7/7. Connect

Once the Database Service has started and joined the cluster, log in to see the registered databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                           Description                                   Labels
------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- --------
postgres-rds                   RDS instance in us-west-1                     ...
aurora-mysql                   Aurora cluster in us-west-1                   ...
aurora-mysql-custom-myendpoint Aurora cluster in us-west-1 (custom endpoint) ...
aurora-mysql-reader            Aurora cluster in us-west-1 (reader endpoint) ...

Note

Primary, reader, and custom endpoints of Aurora clusters have names of <cluster-id>, <cluster-id>-reader, and <cluster-id>-custom-<endpoint-name> respectively.

You can override the <cluster-id> part of the name with teleport.dev/database_name AWS tag.

To retrieve credentials for a database and connect to it:

tsh db connect postgres-rds

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

tsh db connect --db-user=postgres --db-name=postgres postgres-rds

Note

The appropriate database command-line client (psql, mysql, mariadb) should be available in PATH in order to be able to connect.

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

tsh db logout postgres-rds

Troubleshooting

Certificate error

If your tsh db connect error includes the following text, you likely have an RDS database created before July 28, 2020, which presents an X.509 certificate that is incompatible with Teleport:

x509: certificate relies on legacy Common Name field, use SANs instead

AWS provides instructions to rotate your SSL/TLS certificate.

No credential providers error

If you see the error NoCredentialProviders: no valid providers in chain in Database Service logs then Teleport is not detecting the required credentials to connect via AWS IAM permissions. Check whether the credentials or security role has been applied in the machine running the Teleport Database Service.

Timeout errors

The Teleport Database Service needs connectivity to your database endpoints. That may require enabling inbound traffic on the database from the Database Service on the same VPC or routing rules from another VPC. Using the nc program you can verify connections to databases:

nc -zv postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com 5432
Connection to postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com (172.31.24.172) 5432 port [tcp/postgresql] succeeded!

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.

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