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Teleport

Teleport GKE Auto-Discovery

Version 14.x
  • Available for:
  • OpenSource
  • Team
  • Cloud
  • Enterprise

The Teleport Discovery Service can automatically register your Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters with Teleport. With Teleport Kubernetes Discovery, you can configure the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service once, then create GKE clusters without needing to register them with Teleport after each creation.

In this guide, we will show you how to get started with Teleport Kubernetes Discovery for GKE.

Overview

Teleport Kubernetes Auto-Discovery involves two components.

The first, the Discovery Service, is responsible for watching your cloud provider and checking if there are any new clusters or if there have been any modifications to previously discovered clusters. The second, the Kubernetes Service, monitors the clusters created by the Discovery Service. It proxies communications between users and the API servers of these clusters.

Tip

This guide presents the Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service running in the same process, however both can run independently and on different machines.

For example, you can run an instance of the Kubernetes Service in each Kubernetes cluster you want to register with Teleport, and an instance of the Discovery Service in any network you wish.

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 >= 14.2.0.

    See Installation for details.

To check version information, run the tctl version and tsh version commands. For example:

tctl version
Teleport v14.2.0 git:api/14.0.0-gd1e081e go1.21
  
tsh version
Teleport v14.2.0 go1.21
Proxy version: 14.2.0Proxy: teleport.example.com

  • 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 >= 14.1.3.

    You can download these tools from the Cloud Downloads page.

To check version information, run the tctl version and tsh version commands. For example:

tctl version
Teleport Enterprise v14.1.3 git:api/14.0.0-gd1e081e go1.21
  
tsh version
Teleport v14.1.3 go1.21
Proxy version: 14.1.3Proxy: teleport.example.com

  • 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 >= 14.2.0.

    You can download these tools by visiting your Teleport account workspace.

To check version information, run the tctl version and tsh version commands. For example:

tctl version
Teleport Enterprise v14.2.0 git:api/14.0.0-gd1e081e go1.21
  
tsh version
Teleport v14.2.0 go1.21
Proxy version: 14.2.0Proxy: teleport.example.com

  • A Teleport Enterprise Cloud account. If you don't have an account, sign up to begin a free trial of Teleport Team and upgrade to Teleport Enterprise Cloud.

  • The Enterprise tctl admin tool and tsh client tool version >= 14.1.3.

    You can download these tools from the Cloud Downloads page.

To check version information, run the tctl version and tsh version commands. For example:

tctl version
Teleport Enterprise v14.1.3 git:api/14.0.0-gd1e081e go1.21
  
tsh version
Teleport v14.1.3 go1.21
Proxy version: 14.1.3Proxy: teleport.example.com
  • A Google Cloud account with permissions to create GKE clusters, IAM roles, and service accounts.
  • The gcloud CLI tool. Follow the Google Cloud documentation page to install and authenticate to gcloud.
  • One or more GKE clusters running. Your Kubernetes user must have permissions to create ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding resources in your clusters.
  • A Linux host where you will run the Teleport Discovery and Kubernetes services. You can run this host on any cloud provider or even use a local machine.
  • To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with tsh login, then verify that you can run tctl 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 status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  14.2.0
    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 1/3. Obtain Google Cloud credentials

The Teleport Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service use a Google Cloud service account to discover GKE clusters and manage access from Teleport users. In this step, you will create a service account and download a credentials file for the Teleport Discovery Service.

Create an IAM role for the Discovery Service

The Teleport Discovery Service needs permissions to retrieve GKE clusters associated with your Google Cloud project.

To grant these permissions, create a file called GKEKubernetesAutoDisc.yaml with the following content:

title: GKE Cluster Discoverer
description: "Get and list GKE clusters"
stage: GA
includedPermissions:
- container.clusters.get
- container.clusters.list

Create the role, assigning the --project flag to the name of your Google Cloud project:

gcloud iam roles create GKEKubernetesAutoDisc \  --project=google-cloud-project \  --file=GKEKubernetesAutoDisc.yaml

Create an IAM role for the Kubernetes Service

The Teleport Kubernetes Service needs Google Cloud IAM permissions in order to forward user traffic to your GKE clusters.

Create a file called GKEAccessManager.yaml with the following content:

title: GKE Cluster Access Manager
description: "Manage access to GKE clusters"
stage: GA
includedPermissions:
- container.clusters.get
- container.clusters.impersonate
- container.pods.get
- container.selfSubjectAccessReviews.create
- container.selfSubjectRulesReviews.create

Create the role, assigning the --project flag to the name of your Google Cloud project. If you receive a prompt indicating that certain permissions are in TESTING, enter y:

gcloud iam roles create GKEAccessManager \  --project=google-cloud-project \  --file=GKEAccessManager.yaml

Create a service account

Now that you have declared roles for the Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service, create a service account so you can assign these roles.

Run the following command to create a service account called teleport-discovery-kubernetes:

gcloud iam service-accounts create teleport-discovery-kubernetes \  --description="Teleport Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service" \  --display-name="teleport-discovery-kubernetes"

Grant the roles you defined earlier to your service account, assigning PROJECT_ID to the name of your Google Cloud project:

PROJECT_ID=google-cloud-project
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${PROJECT_ID?} \   --member="serviceAccount:teleport-discovery-kubernetes@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \   --role="projects/${PROJECT_ID?}/roles/GKEKubernetesAutoDisc"
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${PROJECT_ID?} \   --member="serviceAccount:teleport-discovery-kubernetes@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \   --role="projects/${PROJECT_ID?}/roles/GKEAccessManager"

Create a service account for each service:

gcloud iam service-accounts create teleport-discovery-service \  --description="Teleport Discovery Service" \  --display-name="teleport-discovery-service"
gcloud iam service-accounts create teleport-kubernetes-service \  --description="Teleport Kubernetes Service" \  --display-name="teleport-kubernetes-service"

Grant the roles you defined earlier to your service account, assigning PROJECT_ID to the name of your Google Cloud project:

PROJECT_ID=google-cloud-project
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${PROJECT_ID?} \   --member="serviceAccount:teleport-discovery-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \   --role="projects/${PROJECT_ID?}/roles/GKEKubernetesAutoDisc"
gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${PROJECT_ID?} \   --member="serviceAccount:teleport-kubernetes-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \   --role="projects/${PROJECT_ID?}/roles/GKEAccessManager"

Retrieve credentials for your Teleport services

Now that you have created a Google Cloud service account and attached roles to it, associate your service account with the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service.

The process is different depending on whether you are deploying the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service on Google Cloud or some other way (e.g., via Amazon EC2 or on a local network).

Stop your VM so you can attach your service account to it:

gcloud compute instances stop vm-name --zone=google-cloud-region

Attach your service account to the instance, assigning the name of your VM to vm-name and the name of your Google Cloud region to google-cloud-region:

gcloud compute instances set-service-account vm-name \   --service-account teleport-discovery-kubernetes@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com \   --zone google-cloud-region \   --scopes=cloud-platform

Stop each VM you plan to use to run the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service.

Attach the teleport-kubernetes-service service account to the VM running the Kubernetes Service:

gcloud compute instances set-service-account ${VM1_NAME?} \   --service-account teleport-kubernetes-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com \   --zone google-cloud-region \   --scopes=cloud-platform

Attach the teleport-discovery-service service account to the VM running the Discovery Service:

gcloud compute instances set-service-account ${VM2_NAME?} \   --service-account teleport-discovery-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com \   --zone google-cloud-region \   --scopes=cloud-platform

You must use the scopes flag in the gcloud compute instances set-service-account command. Otherwise, your Google Cloud VM will fail to obtain the required authorization to access the GKE API.

Once you have attached the service account, restart your VM:

gcloud compute instances start vm-name --zone google-cloud-region

Download a credentials file for the service account used by the Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service:

PROJECT_ID=google-cloud-project
gcloud iam service-accounts keys create google-cloud-credentials.json \    --iam-account=teleport-discovery-kubernetes@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com

Move your credentials file to the host running the Teleport Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service the path /var/lib/teleport/google-cloud-credentials.json. We will use this credentials file when running this service later in this guide.

Download separate credentials files for each service:

PROJECT_ID=google-cloud-project
gcloud iam service-accounts keys create discovery-service-credentials.json \    --iam-account=teleport-discovery-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com
gcloud iam service-accounts keys create kube-service-credentials.json \    --iam-account=teleport-kubernetes-service@${PROJECT_ID?}.iam.gserviceaccount.com

Move discovery-service-credentials.json to the host running the Teleport Discovery Service at the path /var/lib/teleport/google-cloud-credentials.json.

Move kubernetes-service-credentials.json to the host running the Teleport Kubernetes Service at the path /var/lib/teleport/google-cloud-credentials.json.

We will use these credentials files when running this services later in this guide.

Step 2/3. Configure Teleport to discover GKE clusters

Now that you have created a service account that can discover GKE clusters and a cluster role that can manage access, configure the Teleport Discovery Service to detect GKE clusters and the Kubernetes Service to proxy user traffic.

Install Teleport

Install Teleport on the host you are using to run the Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service:

Select an edition, then follow the instructions for that edition to install Teleport.

Teleport Edition

Teleport Community Edition
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s 14.2.0

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 $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(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 nameDescription
stable/<major>Receives releases for the specified major release line, i.e. v14
stable/cloudRolling channel that receives releases compatible with current Cloud version
stable/rollingRolling channel that receives all published Teleport releases

Before installing a teleport binary with a version besides v14, 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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo apt-get install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v14/teleport.repo")"
sudo yum install teleport-ent
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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
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")
sudo yum install teleport-ent
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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v14. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the 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/v14/teleport.repo")"

Install teleport
sudo dnf install teleport-ent

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

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo dnf install teleport-ent-fips
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository.
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/v14/teleport-zypper.repo")

Install teleport
sudo zypper install teleport-ent

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

sudo zypper install teleport-ent-fips

In the example commands below, update $SYSTEM_ARCH with the appropriate value (amd64, arm64, or arm). All example commands using this variable will update after one is filled out.

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations of Teleport Enterprise, package URLs will be slightly different:

curl https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v14.2.0-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

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 nameDescription
stable/<major>Receives releases for the specified major release line, i.e. v14
stable/cloudRolling channel that receives releases compatible with current Cloud version
stable/rollingRolling channel that receives all published Teleport releases

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 $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(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 nameDescription
stable/<major>Receives releases for the specified major release line, i.e. v14
stable/cloudRolling channel that receives releases compatible with current Cloud version
stable/rollingRolling channel that receives all published Teleport releases

Before installing a teleport binary with a version besides v14, read our compatibility rules to ensure that the binary is compatible with Teleport Enterprise 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.

Create a join token

The Teleport Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service require an authentication token in order to to join the cluster. Generate one by running the following tctl command:

tctl tokens add --type=discovery,kube --format=text
abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this

Copy the token (e.g., abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this above) and save the token in /tmp/token on the machine that will run the Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service, for example:

echo abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this | sudo tee /tmp/token
abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this

Generate separate tokens for the Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service by running the following tctl commands:

tctl tokens add --type=discovery --format=text
efgh456-insecure-do-not-use-this
tctl tokens add --type=kube --format=text
ijkl789-insecure-do-not-use-this

Copy each token (e.g., efgh456-insecure-do-not-use-this and ijkl789-insecure-do-not-use-this above) and save it in /tmp/token on the machine that will run the appropriate service.

Configure the Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service

On the host running the Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service, create a Teleport configuration file with the following content at /etc/teleport.yaml:

Discovery Service exposes a configuration parameter - discovery_service.discovery_group - that allows you to group discovered resources into different sets. This parameter is used to prevent Discovery Agents watching different sets of cloud resources from colliding against each other and deleting resources created by another services.

When running multiple Discovery Services, you must ensure that each service is configured with the same discovery_group value if they are watching the same cloud resources or a different value if they are watching different cloud resources.

It is possible to run a mix of configurations in the same Teleport cluster meaning that some Discovery Services can be configured to watch the same cloud resources while others watch different resources. As an example, a 4-agent high availability configuration analyzing data from two different cloud accounts would run with the following configuration.

  • 2 Discovery Services configured with discovery_group: "prod" polling data from Production account.
  • 2 Discovery Services configured with discovery_group: "staging" polling data from Staging account.
version: v3
teleport:
  join_params:
    token_name: "/tmp/token"
    method: token
  proxy_server: "teleport.example.com:443"
auth_service:
  enabled: off
proxy_service:
  enabled: off
ssh_service:
  enabled: off
discovery_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  discovery_group: "gke-myproject"
  gcp:
    - types: ["gke"]
      locations: ["*"]
      project_ids: ["myproject"] # replace with my project ID
      tags:
        "*" : "*"
kubernetes_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  resources:
  - labels:
      "*": "*"

Follow the instructions in this section with two configuration files. The configuration file you will save at /etc/teleport.yaml on the Kubernetes Service host will include the following:

version: v3
teleport:
  join_params:
    token_name: "/tmp/token"
    method: token
  proxy_server: teleport.example.com:443    
auth_service:
  enabled: off
proxy_service:
  enabled: off
ssh_service:
  enabled: off
kubernetes_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  resources:
  - labels:
      "*": "*"

On the Discovery Service host, the file will include the following:

version: v3
teleport:
  join_params:
    token_name: "/tmp/token"
    method: token
  proxy_server: teleport.example.com:443    
auth_service:
  enabled: off
proxy_service:
  enabled: off
ssh_service:
  enabled: off
discovery_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  gcp:
    - types: ["gke"]
      locations: ["*"]
      project_ids: ["myproject"] # replace with my project ID
      tags:
        "*" : "*"

Edit this configuration for your environment as explained below.

proxy_server

Replace teleport.example.com:443 with the host and port of your Teleport Proxy Service (e.g., mytenant.teleport.sh:443 for a Teleport Cloud tenant).

discovery_service.gcp

Each item in discovery_service.gcp is a matcher for Kubernetes clusters running on GKE. The Discovery Service periodically executes a request to the Google Cloud API based on each matcher to list GKE clusters. In this case, we have declared a single matcher.

Each matcher searches for clusters that match all properties of the matcher, i.e., that belong to the specified locations and projects and have the specified tags. The Discovery Service registers GKE clusters that match any configured matcher.

This means that if you declare the following two matchers, the Discovery Service will register clusters in project myproj-dev running in us-east1, as well as clusters in project myproj-prod running in us-east2, but not clusters in myproj-dev running in us-east2:

discovery_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  gcp:
    - types: ["gke"]
      locations: ["us-east1"]
      project_ids: ["myproj-dev"]
      tags:
        "*" : "*"
    - types: ["gke"]
      locations: ["us-east2"]
      project_ids: ["myproj-prod"]
      tags:
        "*" : "*"

discovery_service.gcp[0].types

Each matcher's types field must be set to an array with a single string value, gke.

discovery_service.gcp[0].project_ids

In your matcher, replace myproject with the ID of your Google Cloud project. The project_ids field must include at least one value, and it must not be the wildcard character (*).

discovery_service.gcp[0].locations

Each matcher's locations field contains an array of Google Cloud region or zone names that the matcher will search for GKE clusters. The wildcard character, *, configures the matcher to search all locations.

discovery_service.gcp[0].tags

Like locations, tags consists of a map where each key is a string that represents the key of a tag, and each value is either a single string or an array of strings, representing one tag value or a list of tag values.

A wildcard key or value matches any tag key or value in your Google Cloud account. If you include another value, the matcher will match all GKE clusters with the provided tag.

Start the Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service

On the host where you will run the Kubernetes Service, execute the following command, depending on:

  • Whether you installed Teleport using a package manager or via a TAR archive
  • Whether you are running the Discovery and Kubernetes Service on Google Cloud or another platform

How your host is running:

Google Cloud

On the host where you will run the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service, start the Teleport service:

sudo systemctl start teleport

On the host where you will run the Teleport Kubernetes Service and Discovery Service, create a systemd service configuration for Teleport, enable the Teleport service, and start Teleport:

sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.service
sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

When you installed Teleport via package manager, the installation process created a configuration for the init system systemd to run Teleport as a daemon.

This service reads environment variables from a file at the path /etc/default/teleport. Teleport's built-in Google Cloud client reads the credentials file at the location given by the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS variable.

Ensure that /etc/default/teleport has the following content:

GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/var/lib/teleport/google-cloud-credentials.json"

Start the Teleport service:

sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

On the host where you are running the Teleport Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service, create a systemd configuration that you can use to run Teleport in the background:

sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.service
sudo systemctl enable teleport

This service reads environment variables from a file at the path /etc/default/teleport. Teleport's built-in Google Cloud client reads the credentials file at the location given by the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS variable.

Ensure that /etc/default/teleport has the following content:

GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/var/lib/teleport/google-cloud-credentials.json"

Start the Discovery Service and Kubernetes Service:

sudo systemctl start teleport

Step 3/3. Connect to your GKE cluster

Allow access to your Kubernetes cluster

Ensure that you are in the correct Kubernetes context for the cluster you would like to enable access to:

kubectl config current-context

Retrieve all available contexts:

kubectl config get-contexts

Switch to your context, replacing CONTEXT_NAME with the name of your chosen context:

kubectl config use-context CONTEXT_NAME
Switched to context CONTEXT_NAME

Kubernetes authentication

To authenticate to a Kubernetes cluster via Teleport, your Teleport roles must allow access as at least one Kubernetes user or group. Ensure that you have a Teleport role that grants access to the cluster you plan to interact with.

Run the following command to get the Kubernetes user for your current context:

kubectl config view \-o jsonpath="{.contexts[?(@.name==\"$(kubectl config current-context)\")].context.user}"

Create a file called kube-access.yaml with the following content, replacing USER with the output of the command above.

kind: role
metadata:
  name: kube-access
version: v7
spec:
  allow:
    kubernetes_labels:
      '*': '*'
    kubernetes_resources:
      - kind: '*'
        namespace: '*'
        name: '*'
        verbs: ['*']
    kubernetes_groups:
    - viewers
    kubernetes_users:
    # Replace USER with the Kubernetes user for your current context.
    - USER
  deny: {}

Apply your changes:

tctl create -f kube-access.yaml

Assign the kube-access role to your Teleport user by running the appropriate commands for your authentication provider:

  1. Retrieve your local user's configuration resource:

    tctl get users/$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') > out.yaml

  2. Edit out.yaml, adding kube-access to the list of existing roles:

      roles:
   - access
   - auditor
   - editor
+  - kube-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f out.yaml

  4. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

  1. Retrieve your github authentication connector:

    tctl get github/github --with-secrets > github.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the github.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the github.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit github.yaml, adding kube-access to the teams_to_roles section.

    The team you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the team must include your user account and should be the smallest team possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      teams_to_roles:
    - organization: octocats
      team: admins
      roles:
        - access
+       - kube-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f github.yaml

  4. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

  1. Retrieve your saml configuration resource:

    tctl get --with-secrets saml/mysaml > saml.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the saml.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the saml.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit saml.yaml, adding kube-access to the attributes_to_roles section.

    The attribute you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the group must include your user account and should be the smallest group possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      attributes_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - kube-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f saml.yaml

  4. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

  1. Retrieve your oidc configuration resource:

    tctl get oidc/myoidc --with-secrets > oidc.yaml

    Note that the --with-secrets flag adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to the oidc.yaml file. Because this key contains a sensitive value, you should remove the oidc.yaml file immediately after updating the resource.

  2. Edit oidc.yaml, adding kube-access to the claims_to_roles section.

    The claim you should map to this role depends on how you have designed your organization's role-based access controls (RBAC). However, the group must include your user account and should be the smallest group possible within your organization.

    Here is an example:

      claims_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - kube-access

  3. Apply your changes:

    tctl create -f oidc.yaml

  4. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

Now that Teleport RBAC is configured, you can authenticate to your Kubernetes cluster via Teleport. To interact with your Kubernetes cluster, you will need to configure authorization within Kubernetes.

Kubernetes authorization

To configure authorization within your Kubernetes cluster, you need to create Kubernetes RoleBindings or ClusterRoleBindings that grant permissions to the subjects listed in kubernetes_users and kubernetes_groups.

For example, you can grant some limited read-only permissions to the viewers group used in the kube-access role defined above:

Create a file called viewers-bind.yaml with the following contents:

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: viewers-crb
subjects:
- kind: Group
  # Bind the group "viewers", corresponding to the kubernetes_groups we assigned our "kube-access" role above
  name: viewers
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  # "view" is a default ClusterRole that grants read-only access to resources
  # See: https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/rbac/#user-facing-roles
  name: view
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Apply the ClusterRoleBinding with kubectl:

kubectl apply -f viewers-bind.yaml

Log out of Teleport and log in again.

Access your cluster

When you ran the Discovery Service, it discovered your GKE cluster and registered the cluster with Teleport. You can confirm this by running the following tctl command:

tctl get kube_clusters
kind: kube_clustermetadata:  description: GKE cluster "mycluster-gke" in us-east1  id: 0000000000000000000  labels:    location: us-east1    project-id: myproject    teleport.dev/cloud: GCP    teleport.dev/origin: cloud  name: mycluster-gkespec:  aws: {}  azure: {}version: v3

Run the following command to list the Kubernetes clusters that your Teleport user has access to. The list should now include your GKE cluster:

tsh kube ls
Kube Cluster Name   Labels                                                                                                   Selected------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------mycluster-gke location=us-east1 project-id=myproject teleport.dev/cloud=GCP teleport.dev/origin=cloud

Log in to your cluster, replacing mycluster-gke with the name of a cluster you listed previously:

tsh kube login mycluster-gke
Logged into kubernetes cluster "mycluster-gke". Try 'kubectl version' to test the connection.

As you can see, Teleport GKE Auto-Discovery enabled you to access a GKE cluster in your Google Cloud account without requiring you to register that cluster manually within Teleport. When you create or remove clusters in GKE, Teleport will update its state to reflect the available clusters in your account.

Troubleshooting

Discovery Service

To check if the Discovery Service is working correctly, you can check if any Kubernetes clusters have been discovered. To do this, you can use the tctl get kube_cluster command and inspect if the expected clusters have already been imported into Teleport.

If some clusters do not appear in the list, check if the filtering labels match the missing cluster tags or look into the service logs for permission errors.

Kubernetes Service

If the tctl get kube_cluster command returns the discovered clusters, but the tsh kube ls command does not include them, check that you have set the kubernetes_service.resources section correctly.

kubernetes_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  resources:
  - tags:
      "env": "prod"

If the section is correctly configured, but clusters still do not appear or return authentication errors, please check if permissions have been correctly configured in your target cluster or that you have the correct permissions to list Kubernetes clusters in Teleport.