Forwarding Access Logs using FluentD
Length: 18:36
In this guide, we will explain how to:
- Set up Teleport's event handler.
- Forward events with Fluentd.
Prerequisites
-
A running Teleport cluster. For details on how to set this up, see one of our Getting Started guides.
-
The
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool version >= 11.3.1.tctl versionTeleport v11.3.1 go1.19
tsh versionTeleport v11.3.1 go1.19
See Installation for details.
-
A running Teleport cluster. For details on how to set this up, see our Enterprise Getting Started guide.
-
The
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool version >= 11.3.1, which you can download by visiting the customer portal.tctl versionTeleport v11.3.1 go1.19
tsh versionTeleport v11.3.1 go1.19
-
A Teleport Cloud account. If you do not have one, visit the sign up page to begin your free trial.
-
The
tctl
admin tool andtsh
client tool version >= 11.2.1. To download these tools, visit the Downloads page.tctl versionTeleport v11.2.1 go1.19
tsh versionTeleport v11.2.1 go1.19
- Fluentd version v1.12.4.
- Docker version v20.10.7.
To connect to Teleport, log in to your cluster using tsh
, then use tctl
remotely:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com [email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 11.3.1
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 statusCluster myinstance.teleport.sh
Version 11.2.1
CA pin sha256:sha-hash-here
You must run subsequent tctl
commands in this guide on your local machine.
Create a folder called fluentd
to hold configuration and plugin state:
mkdir -p event-handlercd event-handler
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-v11.3.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gztar -zxvf teleport-event-handler-v11.3.1-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz
curl -L -O https://get.gravitational.com/teleport-event-handler-v11.3.1-darwin-amd64-bin.tar.gztar -zxvf teleport-event-handler-v11.3.1-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.
docker pull public.ecr.aws/gravitational/teleport-plugin-event-handler:11.3.1
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 1cd teleport-plugins/event-handler/build.assetsmake 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
.
Step 2/6. Configure the plugin
Run the configure
command to generate a sample configuration. Replace
mytenant.teleport.sh
with the DNS name of your Teleport Cloud tenant:
./teleport-event-handler configure . mytenant.teleport.sh
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:443docker run -v `pwd`:/opt/teleport-plugin -w /opt/teleport-plugin public.ecr.aws/gravitational/teleport-plugin-event-handler:11.3.1 configure . ${TELEPORT_CLUSTER_ADDRESS?}
In order to connect to Fluentd, 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: user
metadata:
name: teleport-event-handler
spec:
roles: ['teleport-event-handler']
version: v2
---
kind: role
metadata:
name: teleport-event-handler
spec:
allow:
rules:
- resources: ['event']
verbs: ['list','read']
version: v5
Use tctl
to create the role and the user:
tctl create -f teleport-event-handler-role.yamluser "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 Fluentd plugin user
In order for the Fluentd plugin to forward events from your Teleport cluster, it needs a signed identity file from the cluster's certificate authority. The Fluentd 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 > 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
Retrieve your saml
configuration resource:
tctl get 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
Retrieve your oidc
configuration resource:
tctl get oidc/myoidc > 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
Log out of your Teleport cluster and log in again to assume the new role.
Export an identity file for the Fluentd plugin user
The Fluentd Teleport 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 --format=tls --user=teleport-event-handler --out=auth
This command should result in three PEM-encoded files: auth.crt
, auth.key
,
and auth.cas
(certificate, private key, and CA certs, respectively).
tctl auth sign --user=teleport-event-handler --out=identity
The above sequence should result in one PEM-encoded file, identity
.
If you are planning to use the Helm Chart, you'll need to generate the keys
with the file
format, then create a secret in Kubernetes.
Create the identity using the following command:
tctl auth sign --format=file --user=teleport-event-handler --out=identity
Then create the Kubernetes secret:
kubectl create secret generic teleport-event-handler-identity --from-file=auth_id=identity
These commands should result in a PEM-encoded file, identity
, and a secret
in Kubernetes with the name teleport-event-handler-identity
.
Step 5/6. Start the Fluentd forwarder
The Fluentd plugin will send events to your Fluentd instance using keys generated on the previous step.
The fluent.conf
file generated earlier configures your Fluentd instance to
accept events using TLS and print them:
<source>
@type http
port 8888
<transport tls>
client_cert_auth true
# We are going to run fluentd in Docker. /keys will be mounted from the host file system.
ca_path /keys/ca.crt
cert_path /keys/server.crt
private_key_path /keys/server.key
private_key_passphrase ********** # Passphrase generated along with the keys
</transport>
<parse>
@type json
json_parser oj
# This time format is used by the plugin. This field is required.
time_type string
time_format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S
</parse>
</source>
# Events sent to test.log will be dumped to STDOUT.
<match test.log>
@type stdout
</match>
To try out this Fluentd configuration, start your fluentd instance:
docker run -u $(id -u ${USER}):$(id -g ${USER}) -p 8888:8888 -v $(pwd):/keys -v $(pwd)/fluent.conf:/fluentd/etc/fluent.conf fluent/fluentd:edge
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:
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 = "example.teleport.com:443"
identity = "identity"
To start the event handler, run the following command:
./teleport-event-handler start --config teleport-event-handler.toml
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 = "example.teleport.com:443"
client_key = "auth.key"
client_crt = "auth.crt"
root_cas = "auth.cas"
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 11.3.1
This example will start exporting from May 5th 2021
:
./teleport-event-handler start --config teleport-event-handler.toml --start-time "2021-05-05T00:00:00Z"
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 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
...
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 thetctl 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.