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Version: 18.x

Machine & Workload Identity with Application Access

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Teleport protects and controls access to HTTP and TCP applications. Machine & Workload Identity can be used to grant machines secure, short-lived access to these applications.

In this guide, you will configure Machine & Workload Identity's agent, tbot, to produce credentials that can be used to access an application enrolled in your Teleport cluster.

Prerequisites​

  • A running Teleport cluster. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl and tsh clients.

    Installing tctl and tsh clients

    1. Determine the version of your Teleport cluster. The tctl and tsh clients must be at most one major version behind your Teleport cluster version. Send a GET request to the Proxy Service at /v1/webapi/find and use a JSON query tool to obtain your cluster version. Replace teleport.example.com:443 with the web address of your Teleport Proxy Service:

      TELEPORT_DOMAIN=teleport.example.com:443
      TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl -s https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/find | jq -r '.server_version')"

    2. Follow the instructions for your platform to install tctl and tsh clients:

      Download the signed macOS .pkg installer for Teleport, which includes the tctl and tsh clients:

      curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-${TELEPORT_VERSION?}.pkg

      In Finder double-click the pkg file to begin installation.

      danger

      Using Homebrew to install Teleport is not supported. The Teleport package in Homebrew is not maintained by Teleport and we can't guarantee its reliability or security.

    Connecting with TLS routing disabled

    This guide's commands assume your Teleport cluster uses TLS routing (proxy_listener_mode: multiplex), where the tctl and tsh clients reach every Teleport service through the Proxy Service's web address on port 443. If you're not sure whether this applies to your cluster, check with whoever manages it.

    If your cluster uses separate listener ports instead, adjust ports as follows:

    • tsh commands (e.g., tsh login --proxy=...): continue using the Proxy Service web address on port 3080 (or 443 if behind a load balancer). Do not change these to port 3025.

    • Direct tctl or Auth Service API commands: use port 3025 for the Auth Service gRPC listener:

      tctl status --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3025
  • If you have not already connected your application to Teleport, follow the Protect a Web Application with Teleport.
  • Check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster and verify that you can run tctl and tsh commands using your current credentials.

    1. Assign teleport.example.com to the domain name of the Teleport Proxy Service in your cluster and [email protected] to your Teleport username.

    2. Authenticate to your Teleport cluster. This depends on whether your shell is interactive or not.

      In an interactive shell: Run the following command. By default, this triggers a multi-factor authentication prompt:

      tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]
      tctl status
      Cluster  teleport.example.com
      Version  18.10.0
      CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

      On non-interactive environments: If you are running tsh and tctl as an AI agent, in a CI/CD environment, or similar, make sure the TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE environment variable is assigned to a valid file path with credentials for your cluster. tsh and tctl read the file path from the environment variable and do not require a separate authentication step. If there is no identity file available, we recommend that you set up Machine ID to provision one automatically.

      When executing tctl commands with an identity file, you must pass the --auth-server flag to provide the Teleport Auth Service address, which is not included in the identity file. If you provide the Proxy Service address, tctl connects to the Proxy Service, which forwards traffic to and from the Teleport Auth Service. Update 443 to 3025 if you are contacting the Auth Service directly with tctl:

      tctl status --auth-server=teleport.example.com:443

      For tsh commands that read an identity file, you must pass the --proxy flag, which points tsh to the address of the Teleport Proxy Service:

      tsh status --proxy=teleport.example.com

      Ensure client commands can access your identity file. Replace path/to/identity/file with the path to your identity file:

      export TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE="${TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE:-path/to/identity/file}"

      Add the --auth-server or --proxy flags to all subsequent tctl and tsh commands.

    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.
  • tbot must already be installed and configured on the machine that will access applications. For more information, see the deployment guides.

Step 1/3. Configure RBAC​

First, Teleport should be configured to allow the credentials produced by tbot to be used to connect to an Application. This is done by creating a role that grants the necessary permissions and then assigning this role to a Bot.

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

kind: role
version: v6
metadata:
  name: example-role
spec:
  allow:
    # Grants access to all applications.
    app_labels:
      '*': '*'

Replace example-role with a descriptive name related to your use case.

This grants access to all applications. In production environments you should modify these labels to grant access to only the applications that the machine will need access to.

Use tctl create -f ./role.yaml to create the role.

tip

You can also create and edit roles using the Web UI. Go to Access -> Roles and click Create New Role or pick an existing role to edit.

Now, use tctl bots update to add the role to the Bot. Replace example with the name of the Bot you created in the deployment guide and example-role with the name of the role you just created:

tctl bots update example --add-roles example-role

Step 2/3. Configure tbot​

There are two implementation options available when using tbot to grant a client access to an application. The option you choose will depend on your specific needs.

The first option is the application-tunnel service. This operates a local proxy that your client can connect to. The service will automatically attach the credentials to the connection, meaning that the client does not need to support client certificates. However, this does mean that the tbot process must be running for the client to access the application.

The second option is the application output service. This will write TLS credentials to a destination where your client will read them from. The client must support client certificates and reloading them from disk when they are renewed. In addition, this option is not compatible with a TLS-terminating load-balancer between the client and the Teleport Proxy service. Unlike the application-tunnel, the tbot process does not need to be running for the client to access the application - this can be ideal for CI/CD pipelines.

If you aren't sure which to use, we recommend starting with the application-tunnel service as this is compatible with more clients.

To configure the application-tunnel service, first determine where you want the listener to bind to. As any client that can connect to the service listener will be able to access the application, it is recommended to bind to the loopback interface (e.g. 127.0.0.1) as this will prevent access from other hosts.

Modify your tbot configuration to add an application-tunnel service:

services:
- type: application-tunnel
  app_name: dumper
  listen: tcp://127.0.0.1:1234

Replace:

  • dumper with the name of the application you registered in Teleport.
  • listen with the address and port you wish the service to bind to.

Ensure that tbot is not configured to run in one-shot mode, as the application tunnel will not start in this mode.

Restart tbot to apply the new configuration.

Step 3/3. Connect to your web application​

Once the application-tunnel service has been configured, you can connect to the application using the listen address you specified.

For example, to access the application using curl:

curl http://127.0.0.1:1234/

Troubleshooting​

Client application requires certificates with standard extensions​

If your automated service requires TLS certificates with a specific file extension, you may also enable the specific_tls_naming option for the output service:

services:
- type: application
  destination:
    type: directory
    path: /opt/machine-id
  app_name: grafana-example
  specific_tls_naming: true

This will generate tls.crt and tls.key inside /opt/machine-id with identical content to the certificate files listed above.

Clients are redirected to the Teleport login page​

As with human users, scripted clients will be redirected to the Teleport login page when attempting to access an app through the Teleport Proxy Service without valid credentials.

Ensure the bot's certificates have not expired and that the client application has been configured to use both the client certificate and key.

Next steps​

  • Review the Access Controls Reference to learn about restricting which Applications and other Teleport resources your bot may access.
  • Configure JWTs for your Application to remove the need for additional login credentials.
  • Read the configuration reference to explore all the available configuration options.