Teleport
Database Access with Redis
- Version 16.x
- Version 15.x
- Version 14.x
- Version 13.x
- Older Versions
If you want to configure Redis Cluster, please read Database Access with Redis Cluster.
Teleport can provide secure access to Redis via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.
In this guide, you will:
- Configure an Redis database.
- Join the Redis database to your Teleport cluster.
- Connect to the Redis database via the Teleport Database Service.
How it works
The Teleport Database Service authenticates to your self-hosted Redis database using mutual TLS. Redis trusts the Teleport certificate authority for database clients, and presents a certificate signed by either the Teleport database CA or a custom CA. When a user initiates a database session, the Database Service presents a certificate signed by Teleport. The authenticated connection then proxies client traffic from the user.
Prerequisites
-
A running Teleport cluster version 15.2.4 or above. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.
-
The
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool.On Teleport Enterprise, you must use the Enterprise version of
tctl
, which you can download from your Teleport account workspace. Otherwise, visit Installation for instructions on downloadingtctl
andtsh
for Teleport Community Edition.
-
Redis version
6.0
or newer.NoteRESP3 (REdis Serialization Protocol) is currently not supported.
-
redis-cli
version6.2
or newer installed and added to your system'sPATH
environment variable. -
A host where you will run the Teleport Database Service.
See Installation for details.
-
To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with
tsh login
, then verify that you can runtctl
commands using your current credentials.tctl
is supported on macOS and Linux machines.For example:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 15.2.4
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 subsequenttctl
commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also runtctl
commands on the computer that hosts the Teleport Auth Service for full permissions.
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 and configure Teleport where you will run the Teleport Database Service:
Install Teleport on your Linux server:
-
Assign edition to one of the following, depending on your Teleport edition:
Edition Value Teleport Enterprise Cloud cloud
Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted) enterprise
Teleport Community Edition oss
-
Get the version of Teleport to install. If you have automatic agent updates enabled in your cluster, query the latest Teleport version that is compatible with the updater:
TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.comTELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"Otherwise, get the version of your Teleport cluster:
TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.comTELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/ping | jq -r '.server_version')" -
Install Teleport on your Linux server:
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s ${TELEPORT_VERSION} editionThe installation script detects the package manager on your Linux server and uses it to install Teleport binaries. To customize your installation, learn about the Teleport package repositories in the installation guide.
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, start Teleport with the appropriate configuration.
Note that a single Teleport process can run multiple different services, for
example multiple Database Service agents as well as the SSH Service or Application
Service. The step below will overwrite an existing configuration file, so if
you're running multiple services add --output=stdout
to print the config in
your terminal, and manually adjust /etc/teleport.yaml
.
Generate a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml
for the Database Service:
sudo teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --token=/tmp/token \ --proxy=teleport.example.com:443 \ --name=example-redis \ --protocol=redis \ --uri=rediss://redis.example.com:6379 \ --labels=env=dev
sudo teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --token=/tmp/token \ --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \ --name=example-redis \ --protocol=redis \ --uri=rediss://redis.example.com:6379 \ --labels=env=dev
Configure the Teleport Database Service to start automatically when the host boots up by creating a systemd service for it. The instructions depend on how you installed the Teleport Database Service.
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, enable and start Teleport:
sudo systemctl enable teleportsudo systemctl start teleport
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, create a systemd service configuration for Teleport, enable the Teleport service, and start Teleport:
sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.servicesudo systemctl enable teleportsudo systemctl start teleport
You can check the status of the Teleport Database Service with systemctl status teleport
and view its logs with journalctl -fu teleport
.
Teleport provides Helm charts for installing the Teleport Database Service in Kubernetes Clusters.
Set up the Teleport Helm repository.
Allow Helm to install charts that are hosted in the Teleport Helm repository:
helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev
Update the cache of charts from the remote repository so you can upgrade to all available releases:
helm repo update
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \ --create-namespace \ --namespace teleport-agent \ --set roles=db \ --set proxyAddr=teleport.example.com:443 \ --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=example-redis" \ --set "databases[0].uri=rediss://redis.example.com:6379" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=redis" \ --set "labels.env=dev" \ --version 15.2.4
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \ --create-namespace \ --namespace teleport-agent \ --set roles=db \ --set proxyAddr=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \ --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=example-redis" \ --set "databases[0].uri=rediss://redis.example.com:6379" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=redis" \ --set "labels.env=dev" \ --version 15.2.2
Make sure that the Teleport agent pod is running. You should see one
teleport-kube-agent
pod with a single ready container:
kubectl -n teleport-agent get podsNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEteleport-kube-agent-0 1/1 Running 0 32s
A single Teleport process can run multiple services, for example multiple Database Service instances as well as other services such the SSH Service or Application Service.
Step 2/5. Create a Teleport user
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. |
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 3/5. Create Redis users
Each Redis user must be protected by a strong password. We recommend using OpenSSL to generate passwords:
openssl rand -hex 32
If you have access to Redis you can also generate a password by using the below command from the Redis console:
ACL GENPASS
Create a users.acl
file, which defines users for your Redis deployment, passwords required to log in as a given user,
and sets of ACL rules. Redis allows you to provide passwords in plaintext or an SHA256 hash.
We strongly recommend using an SHA256 hash instead of plaintext passwords.
You can use the command below to generate an SHA256 hash from a password.
echo -n STRONG_GENERATED_PASSWORD | sha256sum
user alice on #57639ed88a85996453555f22f5aa4147b4c9614056585d931e5d976f610651e9 allcommands allkeys
user default off
For more ACL examples refer to the Redis documentation.
It's very important to either disable or protect with a password the default
user. Otherwise, everyone with access
to the database can log in as the default
user, which by default has administrator privileges.
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.
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"]
We will show you how to use tctl auth sign
below.
When connecting to standalone Redis, sign the certificate for the hostname over which Teleport will be connecting to it.
For example, if your Redis server is accessible at redis.example.com
,
run:
tctl auth sign --format=redis --host=redis.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 three files:
server.cas
with Teleport's certificate authorityserver.key
with a generated private keyserver.crt
with a generated user certificate
You will need these files to enable mutual TLS on your Redis server.
Use the generated secrets to enable mutual TLS in your redis.conf
configuration
file and restart the database:
tls-port 6379
port 0
aclfile /path/to/users.acl
tls-ca-cert-file /path/to/server.cas
tls-cert-file /path/to/server.crt
tls-key-file /path/to/server.key
tls-protocols "TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3"
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 use the
tls-auth-clients optional
setting to allow connections
from clients that do not present a certificate.
See TLS Support in the Redis documentation for more details.
Step 5/5. Connect
Log into your Teleport cluster and see available databases:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alicetsh db lsName Description Labels
------------- --------------- --------
example-redis Example Redis env=dev
tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --user=alicetsh db lsName Description Labels
------------- --------------- --------
example-redis Example Redis env=dev
To connect to a particular database instance:
tsh db connect example-redis
You can optionally specify the database user to use by default when connecting to the database instance:
tsh db connect --db-user=alice example-redis
If flag --db-user
is not provided, Teleport logs in as the default
user.
Now you can log in as the previously created user using the below command:
AUTH alice STRONG_GENERATED_PASSWORD
To log out of the database and remove credentials:
Remove credentials for a particular database instance.
tsh db logout example-redisRemove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout
Supported Redis commands
Redis in standalone mode doesn't support the commands below. If one of the listed commands is called Teleport
returns the ERR Teleport: not supported by Teleport
HELLO
PUNSUBSCRIBE
SSUBSCRIBE
SUNSUBSCRIBE
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.