Teleport

Export Teleport Audit Events with Datadog

Enterprise
Cloud

Datadog is a SAAS monitoring and security platform. In this guide, we'll explain how to forward Teleport audit events to Datadog using Fluentd.

The Teleport Event Handler is designed to communicate with Fluentd using mTLS to establish a secure channel. In this setup, the Event Handler sends events to Fluentd, which forwards them to Datadog using an API key to authenticate.

Flowchart of Teleport with events forwarded to Datadog

Prerequisites

A running Teleport Enterprise cluster, including the Auth Service and Proxy Service. For details on how to set this up, see our Enterprise Getting Started guide.
The Enterprise tctl admin tool and tsh client tool version >= 12.1.1, which you can download by visiting the customer portal.
```
tctl version
Teleport Enterprise v12.1.1 go1.19
tsh version
Teleport v12.1.1 go1.19
```

Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

A Datadog account.
A server, virtual machine, Kubernetes cluster, or Docker environment to run the Event Handler. The instructions below assume a local Docker container for testing.
Fluentd version v1.12.4 or greater. The Teleport Event Handler will create a new fluent.conf file you can integrate into an existing Fluentd system, or use with a fresh setup.

The instructions below demonstrate a local test of the Event Handler plugin on your workstation. You will need to adjust paths, ports, and domains for other environments.

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  12.1.1
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  12.1.2
CA pin   sha256:sha-hash-here

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

Step 1/6. Install the Event Handler plugin

The Teleport event handler runs alongside the Fluentd forwarder, receives events from Teleport's events API, and forwards them to Fluentd.

curl -L -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-event-handler-v12.1.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
tar -zxvf teleport-event-handler-v12.1.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz

We currently only build the Event Handler plugin for amd64 machines. For ARM architecture, you can build from source.

curl -L -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-event-handler-v12.1.1-darwin-amd64-bin.tar.gz
tar -zxvf teleport-event-handler-v12.1.1-darwin-amd64-bin.tar.gz

We currently only build the event handler plugin for amd64 machines. If your macOS machine uses Apple silicon, you will need to install Rosetta before you can run the event handler plugin. You can also build from source.

Ensure that you have Docker installed and running.

docker pull public.ecr.aws/gravitational/teleport-plugin-event-handler:12.1.1

To allow Helm to install charts that are hosted in the Teleport Helm repository, use helm repo add:

helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev

To update the cache of charts from the remote repository, run helm repo update:

helm repo update

Ensure that you have Docker installed and running.

Run the following commands to build the plugin:

git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport-plugins.git --depth 1
cd teleport-plugins/event-handler/build.assets
make build

You can find the compiled binary within your clone of the teleport-plugins repo, with the file path, event-handler/build/teleport-event-handler.

You will need Go >= 1.19 installed.

Run the following commands on your Universal Forwarder host:

git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport-plugins.git --depth 1
cd teleport-plugins/event-handler
go build

The resulting executable will have the name event-handler. To follow the rest of this guide, rename this file to teleport-event-handler and move it to /usr/local/bin.

Step 2/6. Configure the plugin

Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

Run the configure command to generate a sample configuration. Replace teleport.example.com:443 with the DNS name and HTTPS port of Teleport's Proxy Service:

./teleport-event-handler configure . teleport.example.com:443

Run the configure command to generate a sample configuration. Assign TELEPORT_CLUSTER_ADDRESS to the DNS name and port of your Teleport Auth Service or Proxy Service:

TELEPORT_CLUSTER_ADDRESS=mytenant.teleport.sh:443
docker run -v `pwd`:/opt/teleport-plugin -w /opt/teleport-plugin public.ecr.aws/gravitational/teleport-plugin-event-handler:12.1.1 configure . ${TELEPORT_CLUSTER_ADDRESS?}

In order to export audit events, you'll need to have the root certificate and the client credentials available as a secret. Use the following command to create that secret in Kubernetes:

kubectl create secret generic teleport-event-handler-client-tls --from-file=ca.crt=ca.crt,client.crt=client.crt,client.key=client.key

This will pack the content of ca.crt, client.crt, and client.key into the secret so the Helm chart can mount them to their appropriate path.

You'll see the following output:

Teleport event handler 0.0.1 07617b0ad0829db043fe779faf1669defdc8d84e

[1] mTLS Fluentd certificates generated and saved to ca.crt, ca.key, server.crt, server.key, client.crt, client.key
[2] Generated sample teleport-event-handler role and user file teleport-event-handler-role.yaml
[3] Generated sample fluentd configuration file fluent.conf
[4] Generated plugin configuration file teleport-event-handler.toml

Follow-along with our getting started guide:

https://goteleport.com/setup/guides/fluentd

The plugin generates several setup files:

ls -l
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1038 Jul  1 11:14 ca.crt
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1679 Jul  1 11:14 ca.key
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1042 Jul  1 11:14 client.crt
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1679 Jul  1 11:14 client.key
-rw------- 1 bob bob      541 Jul  1 11:14 fluent.conf
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1078 Jul  1 11:14 server.crt
-rw------- 1 bob bob     1766 Jul  1 11:14 server.key
-rw------- 1 bob bob      260 Jul  1 11:14 teleport-event-handler-role.yaml
-rw------- 1 bob bob      343 Jul  1 11:14 teleport-event-handler.toml

File(s)	Purpose
`ca.crt` and `ca.key`	Self-signed CA certificate and private key for Fluentd
`server.crt` and `server.key`	Fluentd server certificate and key
`client.crt` and `client.key`	Fluentd client certificate and key, all signed by the generated CA
`teleport-event-handler-role.yaml`	`user` and `role` resource definitions for Teleport's event handler
`fluent.conf`	Fluentd plugin configuration

Step 3/6. Create a user and role for reading audit events

The configure command generates a file called teleport-event-handler-role.yaml that defines a teleport-event-handler role and a user with read-only access to the event API:

kind: role
metadata:
  name: teleport-event-handler
spec:
  allow:
    rules:
      - resources: ['event']
        verbs: ['list','read']
version: v5
---
kind: user
metadata:
  name: teleport-event-handler
spec:
  roles: ['teleport-event-handler']
version: v2

Use tctl to create the role and the user:

tctl create -f teleport-event-handler-role.yaml
user "teleport-event-handler" has been created
role 'teleport-event-handler' has been created

Step 4/6. Create teleport-event-handler credentials

Enable impersonation of the Event Handler user

In order for the Teleport Event Handler plugin to forward events from your Teleport cluster, it needs a signed identity file from the cluster's certificate authority. The teleport-event-handler user cannot request this itself, and requires another user to impersonate this account in order to request a certificate.

Create a role that enables your user to impersonate the Fluentd user. First, paste the following YAML document into a file called teleport-event-handler-impersonator.yaml:

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: teleport-event-handler-impersonator
spec:
  # SSH options used for user sessions
  options:
    # max_session_ttl defines the TTL (time to live) of SSH certificates
    # issued to the users with this role.
    max_session_ttl: 10h

  # allow section declares a list of resource/verb combinations that are
  # allowed for the users of this role. by default nothing is allowed.
  allow:
    impersonate:
      users: ["teleport-event-handler"]
      roles: ["teleport-event-handler"]

Next, create the role:

tctl create -f teleport-event-handler-impersonator.yaml

Assign the teleport-event-handler-impersonator role to your Teleport user by running the following commands, depending on whether you authenticate as a local Teleport user or via the github, saml, or oidc authentication connectors:

Retrieve your local user's configuration resource:

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

Edit out.yaml, adding teleport-event-handler-impersonator to the list of existing roles:

  roles:
   - access
   - auditor
   - editor
+  - teleport-event-handler-impersonator

Apply your changes:

tctl create -f out.yaml

Retrieve your github configuration resource:

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

Edit github.yaml, adding teleport-event-handler-impersonator to the teams_to_roles section. The team you will map to this role will depend on how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest team possible within your organization. This team must also include your user.

Here is an example:

  teams_to_roles:
    - organization: octocats
      team: admins
      roles:
        - access
+       - teleport-event-handler-impersonator

Apply your changes:

tctl create -f github.yaml

Warning

Note the --with-secrets flag in the tctl get command. This adds the value of spec.signing_key_pair.private_key to saml.yaml. This is a sensitive value, so take precautions when creating this file and remove it after updating the resource.

Retrieve your saml configuration resource:

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

Edit saml.yaml, adding teleport-event-handler-impersonator to the attributes_to_roles section. The attribute you will map to this role will depend on how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest group possible within your organization. This group must also include your user.

Here is an example:

  attributes_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - teleport-event-handler-impersonator

Apply your changes:

tctl create -f saml.yaml

Warning

Retrieve your oidc configuration resource:

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

Edit oidc.yaml, adding teleport-event-handler-impersonator to the claims_to_roles section. The claim you will map to this role will depend on how you have designed your organization's RBAC, but it should be the smallest group possible within your organization. This group must also include your user.

Here is an example:

  claims_to_roles:
    - name: "groups"
      value: "my-group"
      roles:
        - access
+       - teleport-event-handler-impersonator

Apply your changes:

tctl create -f saml.yaml

Warning

Log out of your Teleport cluster and log in again to assume the new role.

Export an identity file for the Event Handler plugin user

The Teleport Event Handler plugin uses the teleport-event-handler role and user to read events. We export an identity file for the user with the tctl auth sign command.

tctl auth sign --user=teleport-event-handler --out=identity

This command creates one PEM-encoded file, identity. The identity file includes both TLS and SSH credentials. The Event Handler plugin uses the SSH credentials to connect to the Proxy Service, which establishes a reverse tunnel connection to the Auth Service. The plugin uses this reverse tunnel, along with your TLS credentials, to connect to the Auth Service's gRPC endpoint.

Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

Step 5/6. Install Fluentd output plugin for Datadog

In order for Fluentd to communicate with Datadog, it requires the Fluentd output plugin for Datadog. Install the plugin on your Fluentd host using either gem or the td-agent, if installed:

Using Gem
gem install fluent-plugin-datadog
Using td-agent
/usr/sbin/td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-datadog

Testing Locally?

If you're running Fluentd in a local Docker container for testing, you can adjust the entrypoint to an interactive shell as the root user, so you can install the plugin before starting Fluentd:

docker run -u $(id -u root):$(id -g root) -p 8888:8888 -v $(pwd):/keys -v \$(pwd)/fluent.conf:/fluentd/etc/fluent.conf --entrypoint=/bin/sh -i --tty  fluent/fluentd:edge
From the container shell:
gem install fluent-plugin-datadog
fluentd -c /fluentd/etc/fluent.conf

Configure Fluentd for Datadog

From the Datadog web UI, generate an API key for Fluentd. From Organization Settings -> Access -> API Keys, click on + New Key:

Copy the API key, and use it to add a new <match> block to fluent.conf:

<match test.log>

  @type datadog
  @id awesome_agent
  api_key abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this

  host http-intake.logs.us5.datadoghq.com

  # Optional parameters
  dd_source teleport

</match>

Add your API key to the api_key field.
Adjust the host value to match your Datadog site. See their Log Collection and Integrations guide to determine the correct value.
dd_source is an optional field you can use to filter these logs in the Datadog UI.
Adjust ca_path, cert_path and private_key_path to point to the credential files generated earlier. If you're testing locally, the Docker command above already mounted the current working directory to keys/ in the container.

Restart Fluentd after saving the changes to fluent.conf.

Step 6/6. Start the event handler plugin

Earlier, we generated a file called teleport-event-handler.toml to configure the Fluentd event handler. This file includes setting similar to the following:

Cloud is not available for Teleport v.
Please use the latest version of Teleport Enterprise documentation.

storage = "./storage"
timeout = "10s"
batch = 20
namespace = "default"

[forward.fluentd]
ca = "/home/sasha/scripts/event-handler/ca.crt"
cert = "/home/sasha/scripts/event-handler/client.crt"
key = "/home/sasha/scripts/event-handler/client.key"
url = "https://localhost:8888/test.log"

[teleport]
addr = "teleport.example.com:443"
identity = "identity"

To start the event handler, run the following command:

./teleport-event-handler start --config teleport-event-handler.toml

Use the following template to create teleport-plugin-event-handler-values.yaml:

eventHandler:
  storagePath: "./storage"
  timeout: "10s"
  batch: 20
  namespace: "default"

teleport:
  address: "example.teleport.com:443"
  identitySecretName: teleport-event-handler-identity

fluentd:
  url: "https://fluentd.fluentd.svc.cluster.local/events.log"
  sessionUrl: "https://fluentd.fluentd.svc.cluster.local/session.log"
  certificate:
    secretName: "teleport-event-handler-client-tls"
    caPath: "ca.crt"
    certPath: "client.crt"
    keyPath: "client.key"

persistentVolumeClaim:
  enabled: true

To start the event handler in Kubernetes, run the following command:

helm install teleport-plugin-event-handler teleport/teleport-plugin-event-handler \  --values teleport-plugin-event-handler-values.yaml \  --version 12.1.1

Note

This example will start exporting from May 5th 2021:

./teleport-event-handler start --config teleport-event-handler.toml --start-time "2022-02-02T00:00:00Z"

The start time can be set only once, on the first run of the tool.

If you want to change the time frame later, remove the plugin state directory that you specified in the storage field of the handler's configuration file.

Once the handler starts, you will see notifications in Fluentd about scanned and forwarded events:

INFO[0046] Event sent id=0b5f2a3e-faa5-4d77-ab6e-362bca0994fc ts="2021-06-08 11:00:56.034 +0000 UTC" type=user.login
...

The Logs view in Datadog should now report your Teleport cluster events:

Troubleshooting connection issues

If the Teleport Event Handler is displaying error logs while connecting to your Teleport Cluster, ensure that:

The certificate the Teleport Event Handler is using to connect to your Teleport cluster is not past its expiration date. This is the value of the --ttl flag in the tctl auth sign command, which is 12 hours by default.
Ensure that in your Teleport Event Handler configuration file (teleport-event-handler.toml), you have provided the correct host and port for the Teleport Proxy Service or Auth Service.

Next steps

Read more about impersonation here.
While this guide uses the tctl auth sign command to issue credentials for the Teleport Event Handler, production clusters should use Machine ID for safer, more reliable renewals. Read our guide to getting started with Machine ID.
To see all of the options you can set in the values file for the teleport-plugin-event-handler Helm chart, consult our reference guide.
Review the Fluentd output plugin for Datadog README file to learn how to customize the log format entering Datadog.

Have a suggestion or can’t find something?

IMPROVE THE DOCS