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Teleport
Database Access with Redis Cluster
- Version 17.x
- Version 16.x
- Version 15.x
- Version 14.x
- Older Versions
If you want to configure Redis Standalone, please read Database Access with Redis.
Teleport can provide secure access to Redis cluster via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through the Teleport RBAC system.
The Teleport Database Service proxies traffic from database clients to self-hosted databases in your infrastructure. Teleport maintains a certificate authority for database clients. You configure your database to trust the Teleport database client CA, and the Teleport Database Service presents certificates signed by this CA when proxying user traffic. With this setup, there is no need to store long-lived credentials for self-hosted databases.
Meanwhile, the Teleport Database Service verifies self-hosted databases by checking their TLS certificates against either the Teleport database CA or a custom CA chosen by the user.
In this guide, you will:
- Configure your Redis cluster database for Teleport access.
- Add the database to your Teleport cluster.
- Connect to the database via Teleport.
How it works
The Teleport Database Service authenticates to your self-hosted Redis cluster database using mutual TLS. Redis cluster 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 Teleport Database Service presents a certificate signed by Teleport. The authenticated connection then proxies client traffic from the user.
Prerequisites
-
A running Teleport cluster version 16.2.1 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.Visit Installation for instructions on downloading
tctl
andtsh
.
-
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.
-
A certificate authority to issue server certificates for nodes in your Redis Cluster.
Distributed databases like Redis Cluster use mTLS for node-to-node communication. Teleport requires that you have your own CA to issue certificates for node-to-node mTLS communication.
Teleport uses a split-CA architecture for database access. The Teleport
db
CA issues server certificates and thedb_client
CA issues client certificates.Databases are configured to trust the Teleport
db_client
CA for client authentication, but not thedb
CA. Additionally, Teleport only issues ephemeraldb_client
CA certificates.When a Redis Cluster node connects to another Redis Cluster node, it must present a certificate that the other node trusts for client authentication. Since Teleport does not issue long-lived
db_client
certificates, the node needs to have a long-lived certificate issued by another CA that its peer node trusts.The split
db
anddb_client
CA architecture was introduced as a security fix in Teleport versions: 13.4.17, 14.3.7, and 15.See Database CA Migrations for more information.
-
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.For example:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 16.2.1
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 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 1/6. Set up the Teleport Database Service
The Database Service requires a valid join token to join your Teleport cluster.
Run the following tctl
command and save the token output in /tmp/token
on the server that will run the Database Service:
tctl tokens add --type=db --format=textabcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this
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://cdn.teleport.dev/install-v16.2.1.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?mode=cluster \ --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?mode=cluster \ --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=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=example-redis" \ --set "databases[0].uri=rediss://redis.example.com:6379?mode=cluster" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=redis" \ --set "databases[0].static_labels.env=dev" \ --version 16.2.1
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(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?mode=cluster" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=redis" \ --set "databases[0].static_labels.env=dev" \ --version 16.1.7
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 2/6. Create a Teleport user
To modify an existing user to provide access to the Database Service, see Database 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, MongoDB, and Cloud Spanner databases.
For more detailed information about database access controls and how to restrict access see RBAC documentation.
Step 3/6. 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 4/6. Set up mutual TLS
Export your Teleport cluster's db_client
CA cert and concatenate it with your Redis
Cluster's CA cert (in PEM format):
tctl auth export --type=db-client > db-client-ca.crtcat /path/to/your/ca.crt db-client-ca.crt > pem-bundle.cas
Using your Redis Cluster's CA, issue server.crt
for each of your Redis Cluster
nodes and enable mutual TLS in your redis.conf
configuration file, then
restart each node:
tls-port 7001
port 0
cluster-enabled yes
tls-replication yes
tls-cluster yes
aclfile /path/to/users.acl
masterauth GENERATED_STRONG_PASSWORD
masteruser replica-user
tls-cert-file /usr/local/etc/redis/certs/server.crt
tls-key-file /usr/local/etc/redis/certs/server.key
tls-ca-cert-file /usr/local/etc/redis/certs/pem-bundle.cas
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.
Modify the Teleport Database Service to trust your Redis Cluster CA:
databases:
- name: "example-redis"
protocol: "redis"
uri: "rediss://redis.example.com:6379?mode=cluster"
static_labels:
"env": "example"
tls:
ca_cert_file: "/path/to/your/ca.crt"
Now the Teleport Database Service will trust certificates presented by your Redis Cluster.
Step 5/6. Create a cluster
To create the cluster after mutual TLS is enabled, you will need to use a
certificate that the Redis nodes trust for client authentication.
You can use a certificate that you already issued for one of the nodes, i.e.
server.crt
or you can issue a new client certificate using your Redis Cluster
CA.
Use the following command to create the cluster. Please note redis-cli --cluster create
accepts only IP addresses.
export REDISCLI_AUTH=STRONG_GENERATED_PASSWORDexport CERTS_DIR=/path/to/certs/export IP1=10.0.0.1 # update with the real node 1 IPexport IP2=10.0.0.2 # update with the real node 2 IPexport IP3=10.0.0.3 # update with the real node 3 IPexport IP4=10.0.0.4 # update with the real node 4 IPexport IP5=10.0.0.5 # update with the real node 5 IPexport IP6=10.0.0.6 # update with the real node 6 IPredis-cli --user alice --cluster-replicas 1 --tls --cluster-yes \ --cluster create ${IP1}:7001 ${IP2}:7002 ${IP3}:7003 ${IP4}:7004 ${IP5}:7005 ${IP6}:7006 \ --cacert ${CERTS_DIR}/ca.crt --key ${CERTS_DIR}/server.key --cert ${CERTS_DIR}/server.crt
Step 6/6. Connect
To enable Redis cluster mode in Teleport, add the mode=cluster
parameter to the connection URI in
your Teleport Database Service config file.
databases:
- name: "redis-cluster"
uri: "rediss://redis.example.com:6379?mode=cluster"
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 Cluster commands
Redis in cluster mode does not support the following commands. If one of the listed commands above is called Teleport
returns the ERR Teleport: command not supported
ACL
ASKING
CLIENT
CLUSTER
CONFIG
DEBUG
EXEC
HELLO
INFO
LATENCY
MEMORY
MIGRATE
MODULE
MONITOR
MULTI
PFDEBUG
PFSELFTEST
PSUBSCRIBE
PSYNC
PUNSUBSCRIBE
PUNSUBSCRIBE
READONLY
READWRITE
REPLCONF
REPLICAOF
ROLE
SCAN
SCRIPT DEBUG
SCRIPT KILL
SHUTDOWN
SLAVEOF
SLOWLOG
SSUBSCRIBE
SUNSUBSCRIBE
SYNC
TIME
WAIT
WATCH
Teleport conducts additional processing on the following commands before communicating with Redis Cluster:
Command | Description |
---|---|
DBSIZE | Sends the query to all nodes and returns the number of keys in the whole cluster. |
KEYS | Sends the query to all nodes and returns a list of all keys in the whole cluster. |
MGET | Translates the commands to multiple GET s and sends them to multiple nodes. Result is merged in Teleport and returned back to the client. If Teleport fails to fetch at least one key an error is returned. |
FLUSHDB | Sends the query to all nodes. |
FLUSHALL | Works the same as FLUSHDB . |
SCRIPT EXISTS | Sends the query to all nodes. 1 is returned only if script exists on all nodes. |
SCRIPT LOAD | Sends the script to all nodes. |
SCRIPT FLUSH | Sends the query to all nodes. ASYNC parameter is ignored. |
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.