Session Recording Summaries

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Teleport Identity Security allows you to generate and view session recording summaries for shell and database sessions. This allows you to see at a glance what your users do and estimate legitimacy of their actions before digging deeper and reviewing the entire recording.

warning

This feature is powered by AI, and as such, its accuracy may vary.

Teleport doesn't currently support any spend controls; controlling the LLM token budget is your responsibility.

How session recording summarization works

Teleport can automatically summarize any recorded interactive SSH or Kubernetes session, as well as any recorded database session.

After each session finishes, Teleport decides if it should be summarized by matching it against a set of policies which route sessions to LLMs. Exactly which sessions are summarized and which model is used can be decided on using session, resource, and user metadata, such as session kind, session participants, resource labels, user traits, etc.

If a match is found, Teleport proceeds to summarize the session recording. It uses an inference model configuration indicated by the policy to generate a summary using an external inference provider, such as OpenAI. There is no way to run this process on demand.

There are three fundamental concepts to that underpin session summarization:

• Inference providers do the heavy lifting of summarization. Currently, Teleport only supports OpenAI or compatible inference providers.
• Inference models indicate how sessions get summarized: they are Teleport configuration resources that provide model settings.
• Inference policies indicate what gets summarized and which inference model is used in given case.

Prerequisites

• A running Teleport Enterprise cluster v18.2.0 or later with Identity Security enabled.
• Access to OpenAI or OpenAI-compatible inference API, either public or self-hosted.

Step 1/4: Configure access to inference configuration

In order to manage the summary inference configuration, you need a write access to inference_model, inference_secret, and inference_policy resources, which is granted by default through the preset editor role.

Alternatively, you can create a new role to make sure you have access to all necessary resources. To create a new role:

1. Create a summarizer-admin.yaml file with the following content:

   kind: role
   metadata:
     name: summarizer-admin
   spec:
     allow:
       rules:
       - resources:
         - inference_model
         - inference_secret
         - inference_policy
         verbs:
         - read
         - list
         - create
         - update
         - delete
   version: v7
   

2. Apply your changes:

   tctl create -f summarizer-admin.yaml

   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.

3. Assign the summarizer-admin role to your Teleport user by running the appropriate commands for your authentication provider:

   Local User

   1. Retrieve your local user's roles as a comma-separated list:

      ROLES=$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.roles | join(",")')

   2. Edit your local user to add the new role:

      tctl users update $(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') \  --set-roles "${ROLES?},summarizer-admin"

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

   GitHub

   1. Open your github authentication connector in a text editor:

      tctl edit github/github

   2. Edit the github connector, adding summarizer-admin 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
      +       - summarizer-admin
      

   3. Apply your changes by saving closing the file in your editor.

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

   SAML

   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 summarizer-admin 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
      +       - summarizer-admin
      

   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.

   OIDC

   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 summarizer-admin 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
      +       - summarizer-admin
      

   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.

Step 2/4: Create the inference configuration resources

Let's start by defining an inference_model resource. It tells Teleport how to summarize a session by pointing it to a large language model (LLM) API. In particular, it contains an API-specific model name. Note that the Teleport inference model name and API-specific model name are two different things. This allows, for example, using the same OpenAI model with different temperature settings or using different API gateways by creating multiple Teleport inference models with the same OpenAI model name.

To communicate with OpenAI, an inference model needs an API key. It's stored separately in an inference_secret resource and referenced by the inference_model's spec.openai.api_key_secret_ref field.

warning

To protect your API key, once written, an inference_secret value cannot be retrieved through tctl or Teleport API. It can only be updated or deleted.

Finally, we add an inference_policy that routes sessions to inference models using session kinds and optional custom filters. Only one policy is allowed to match a given session to guarantee that its recording will be summarized at most once. Policies are checked in alphabetical order of names and the first one that matches is used. Here are some example scenarios that can be expressed using inference policies:

• Only summarize sessions to your production resources using resource labels.
• Use different models for summarizing shell and database sessions.

See Session matching examples for details on how to configure Teleport to achieve these goals.

To create the required configuration resources:

1. Create an inference-config.yaml file with the following content:

   kind: inference_model
   version: v1
   metadata:
     name: shell-summary-model
   spec:
     # "openai" is currently the only supported inference provider.
     openai:
       # In this scenario, where we connect to OpenAI directly, openai_model_id
       # needs to be a valid OpenAI model name.
       openai_model_id: gpt-4o
       # This value refers to the `inference_secret` resource name.
       api_key_secret_ref: openai-key
     # It's a good idea to limit the session length to prevent incurring cost for
     # sessions that were too long anyway to fit in the model's context window.
     # If unset, defaults to 200kB. See the Limitations section for more details.
     max_session_length_bytes: 190000
   
   ---
   
   kind: inference_secret
   version: v1
   metadata:
     name: openai-key
   spec:
     value: '<paste-your-openai-api-key-here>'
   
   ---
   
   kind: inference_policy
   version: v1
   metadata:
     name: shell-sessions
     description: Summarize all sessions using OpenAI
   spec:
     # Session kinds affected by this policy. Allowed values: "ssh", "k8s", "db".
     kinds:
     - ssh
     - k8s
     - db
     # Name of the `inference_model` resource that will be used for summarizing
     # these sessions.
     model: shell-summary-model
   

2. Create the configuration resources in the backend:

   tctl create -f inference-config.yaml

For full description of the inference configuration resources, see appropriate sections of Teleport Resources Reference:

• inference_model
• inference_secret
• inference_policy

Step 3/4: Configure access to session summaries

Every user who has access to given session recording also has access to its summary through a session resource kind. The preset access role allows users to only view their sessions; in order to allow a user to view all recordings and summaries, it's easiest to use the preset auditor role.

You can either use the built-in roles or create a new one to make sure you have access to all recordings. To create a new role:

1. Create a summary-auditor.yaml file with the following content:

   kind: role
   metadata:
     name: summary-auditor
   spec:
     allow:
       rules:
       - resources:
         - session
         verbs:
         - read
         - list
   version: v7
   

2. Apply your changes:

   tctl create -f summary-auditor

3. Assign the summary-auditor role to your Teleport user by running the appropriate commands for your authentication provider:

   Local User

   1. Retrieve your local user's roles as a comma-separated list:

      ROLES=$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.roles | join(",")')

   2. Edit your local user to add the new role:

      tctl users update $(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') \  --set-roles "${ROLES?},summary-auditor"

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

   GitHub

   1. Open your github authentication connector in a text editor:

      tctl edit github/github

   2. Edit the github connector, adding summary-auditor 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
      +       - summary-auditor
      

   3. Apply your changes by saving closing the file in your editor.

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

   SAML

   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 summary-auditor 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
      +       - summary-auditor
      

   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.

   OIDC

   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 summary-auditor 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
      +       - summary-auditor
      

   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.

Step 4/4: Conduct a session and view its summary

That's it! We are ready to conduct a test session. Connect to any of your cluster resources using tsh ssh, kubectl exec, tsh db connect, or a web terminal. Start an interactive session and execute any command, quit the session, and go to Audit -> Session Recordings. You should see the corresponding recording tile with a summary button . Clicking the summary button will show the summary.

info

It can take a while to generate a summary, and the time depends on multiple factors, including session size, model, and its temperature. Usually it should appear up to a minute after the session is uploaded to the Auth service.

Limitations

Currently, Teleport doesn't attempt to summarize sessions that are larger than the model's context window. If after tokenization, the session turns out to be larger than that, OpenAI will simply reject the request; the input tokens used will be wasted. To prevent this, Teleport allows you to customize the maximum size of session that may be sent to the inference provider by using the spec.max_session_length_bytes field of the inference_model resource. Note that there's no way to provide an exact number of bytes for a given model here; in our experiments, we observed between 2 and 4 bytes per token, depending on the model and input.

Selecting sessions to summarize

Indiscriminately summarizing all sessions in your cluster can increase costs, so it's recommended to be specific about which sessions will be summarized and which model will be used for inference. One of these mechanisms — selecting sessions by kind — was mentioned already in the above example. In addition to matching by kind, it's also possible to add a custom filter to each inference policy, which can be used to summarize only sessions that target production resources, are attended by certain users, etc.

Filters are expressed using the Teleport predicate language. If an inference policy contains a filter, it will match only sessions that match one of the indicated kinds and the specified filter.

Session matching examples

A typical case would be to pick only production resources for summarizing. The following example policy only matches Kubernetes sessions in any of the production clusters, picked by matching cluster labels:

kind: inference_policy
version: v1
metadata:
  name: prod-k8s-sessions
  description: Summarize production Kubernetes sessions
spec:
  kinds:
  - k8s
  filter: 'equals(resource.metadata.labels["env"], "prod")'
  model: shell-summary-model

The following example uses two policies to route shell and database sessions to two different models. It assumes that there are two inference_model resources created: database-summary-model and shell-summary-model.

kind: inference_policy
version: v1
metadata:
  name: shell-policy
spec:
  kinds: ['ssh', 'k8s']
  model: shell-summary-model

---

kind: inference_policy
version: v1
metadata:
  name: db-policy
spec:
  kinds: ['db']
  model: db-summary-model

Predicate Language

Inference policy filters are expressed using Teleport predicate language. In this case, the language supports the following operators:

Operator	Meaning	Example
&&	and (all conditions must match)	contains(field1, field2) && equals(field2, "val")
||	or (any one condition should match)	contains(field1, field2) || contains(field1, "val2")
!	not (used with functions)	!equals(field1, field2)
==	equal to	resource.metadata.labels["env"] == "prod"
!=	not equal to	resource.metadata.labels["env"] != "prod"

The language also supports the following functions:

Functions	Return type	Description
contains(list, item)	Boolean	Returns true if item is included in the list
equals(a, b)	Boolean	Returns true if value a is equal to b
contains_all(list, items)	Boolean	Returns true if all items are included in the list
contains_any(list, items)	Boolean	Returns true if any of items is included in the list
set(value1, value2, ...)	[]string	Returns a list of strings
all_end_with(a, suffix)	Boolean	If a is a list, returns true if all strings in the a end with suffix. If a is a string, returns true if a ends with suffix.
all_equal(a, b)	Boolean	If a is a list, returns true if all items in a are equal to b. If a is a string, returns true if it's equal to b.
is_subset(a, item1, item2, ...)	Boolean	If a is a list, returns true if list(item1, item2, ...) is a subset of a. If a is a string, returns true if the list contains a.
has_prefix(s, prefix)	Boolean	Returns true if string s starts with prefix

It's possible to build predicates using information about target resource, session, and user.

Field	Meaning	Example
user	User that created the session.
user.metadata.name	User's name	is_subset(user.metadata.name, "alice", "bob")
user.spec.roles	User's roles	contains(user.spec.roles, "intern")
user.spec.traits	User's traits	contains(user.spec.traits["teams"], "alpha")
resource	Resource that this session connects to (server, Kubernetes cluster, or database)
resource.kind	Resource kind	resource.kind == "node
resource.metadata.name	Resource name. In case of SSH servers, it's the server ID.	resource.name == "production-cluster"
resource.metadata.labels	Resource labels	equals(resource.metadata.labels["env"], "prod")
session	The session that is being matched. This object supports all the fields of session.end and db.session.end events, so we only name the most useful ones here.
session.participants	Users that participated in the session (SSH and Kubernetes sessions only)	contains(session.participants, "alice")
session.cluster_name	Name of the Teleport cluster	cluster_name == "teleport.example.com"
session.db_name	Name of database (the underlying one, not the Teleport resource; database sessions only)	session.db_name == "orders"
session.db_service	Database service name (database sessions only)	session.db_service == "prod-db-service"
session.kubernetes_users	List of Kubernetes usernames (Kubernetes sessions only)	contains(session.kubernetes_users, "admin")
session.kubernetes_groups	List of Kubernetes groups (Kubernetes sessions only)	contains(session.kubernetes_groups, "viewers")
session.kubernetes_node_name	Name of node that runs the pod (Kubernetes sessions only)	session.kubernetes_node_name == "node1"
session.kubernetes_pod_name	Name of the pod (Kubernetes sessions only)	session.kubernetes_pod_name == "some-pod"
session.kubernetes_pod_namespace	Namespace that contains the pod (Kubernetes sessions only)	session.kubernetes_pod_namespace == "default"

Using LiteLLM and other OpenAI-compatible proxies

Although the only officially supported inference provider is currently OpenAI, it's also possible to use any OpenAI-compatible API for this purpose. For example, you may want to route some or all sessions to another provider or even host your language models on premises. One way to do it is using LiteLLM. Here's what you need to do:

1. Set up LiteLLM Proxy Server (LLM Gateway) on a host accessible from the Teleport Auth server.
2. Add a model of your choice to the LiteLLM configuration. In this example, let's call it my-custom-model.
3. Configure a Teleport inference model. Use spec.openai.base_url property to point Teleport to your LiteLLM instance and put my-custom-model in spec.openai.openai_model_id.
4. Add an inference_secret containing your LiteLLM master key.

Here is an example configuration:

kind: inference_model
version: v1
metadata:
  name: lite-llm-summary-model
spec:
  openai:
    # In case of LiteLLM Proxy, the openai_model_id is the public model name as
    # configured in LiteLLM.
    openai_model_id: my-custom-model
    api_key_secret_ref: lite-llm-master-key
    base_url: http://llm-host:4000/

---

kind: inference_secret
version: v1
metadata:
  name: lite-llm-master-key
spec:
  # In case of LiteLLM, the API key is *not* your OpenAI key; instead, use your
  # LiteLLM master key.
  value: '<paste-your-master-key-here>'

Monitoring

Teleport exposes a couple of useful Prometheus metrics that can be used to monitor the session summarizer. Metrics are labeled by inference model name, and in case of OpenAI errors — additionally with the OpenAI API error code. See the Teleport Metrics reference for details.