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Version: 17.x (unreleased)

Teleport High Availability mode on AWS

This guide is designed to accompany our reference Terraform code and describe how to manage the resulting Teleport deployment.

tip

Teleport Enterprise Cloud takes care of this setup for you so you can provide secure access to your infrastructure right away.

Get started with a free trial of Teleport Enterprise Cloud.

Prerequisites​

Our code requires Terraform 0.13+. You can download Terraform here. We will assume that you have terraform installed and available on your path.

$ which terraform
/usr/local/bin/terraform
$ terraform version
Terraform v1.5.6

You will also require the aws command line tool. This is available in Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/CentOS and macOS Homebrew as the awscli package.

Fedora/CentOS: yum -y install awscli

Ubuntu/Debian: apt-get -y install awscli

macOS (with Homebrew): brew install awscli

When possible, installing via a package is always preferable. If you can't find a package available for your distribution, you can also download the tool from https://aws.amazon.com/cli/

We will assume that you have configured your AWS cli access with credentials available at ~/.aws/credentials:

$ cat ~/.aws/credentials
# [default]
# aws_access_key_id = abcd1234-this-is-an-example
# aws_secret_access_key = zyxw9876-this-is-an-example

You should also have a default region set under ~/.aws/config:

$ cat ~/.aws/config
# [default]
# region = us-west-2

As a result, you should be able to run a command like aws ec2 describe-instances to list running EC2 instances. If you get an "access denied", "403 Forbidden" or similar message, you will need to grant additional permissions to the AWS IAM user that your aws_access_key_id and aws_secret_access_key refers to.

As a general rule, we assume that any user running Terraform has administrator-level permissions for the following AWS services:

The Terraform deployment itself will create new IAM roles to be used by Teleport instances that have appropriately limited permission scopes for AWS services. However, the initial cluster setup must be done by a user with a high level of AWS permissions.

Get the Terraform code​

Firstly, you'll need to clone the Teleport repo to get the Terraform code available on your system:

$ git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport -b branch/v17
# Cloning into 'teleport'...
# remote: Enumerating objects: 106, done.
# remote: Counting objects: 100% (106/106), done.
# remote: Compressing objects: 100% (95/95), done.
# remote: Total 61144 (delta 33), reused 35 (delta 11), pack-reused 61038
# Receiving objects: 100% (61144/61144), 85.17 MiB | 4.66 MiB/s, done.
# Resolving deltas: 100% (39141/39141), done.

Once this is done, you can change into the directory where the Terraform code is checked out and run terraform init:

$ cd teleport/examples/aws/terraform/ha-autoscale-cluster
$ terraform init

Initializing the backend...

Initializing provider plugins...
- Checking for available provider plugins...
- Installing hashicorp/aws v5.31.0...
- Installed hashicorp/aws v5.31.0 (signed by HashiCorp)

Terraform has been successfully initialized!

You may now begin working with Terraform. Try running "terraform plan" to see
any changes that are required for your infrastructure. All Terraform commands
should now work.

If you ever set or change modules or backend configuration for Terraform,
rerun this command to reinitialize your working directory. If you forget, other
commands will detect it and remind you to do so if necessary.

This will download the appropriate Terraform plugins needed to spin up Teleport using our reference code.

Set up variables​

Terraform modules use variables to pass in input. You can do this in a few ways:

  • on the command line to terraform apply
  • by editing the vars.tf file
  • by setting environment variables

For this guide, we are going to make extensive use of environment variables. This is because it makes it easier for us to reference values from our configuration when running Teleport commands after the cluster has been created.

Any set environment variable starting with TF_VAR_ is automatically processed and stripped down by Terraform, so TF_VAR_test_variable becomes test_variable.

We maintain an up-to-date list of the variables and what they do in the README.md file under the examples/aws/terraform/ha-autoscale-cluster section of the Teleport repo but we'll run through an example list here.

Things you will need to decide on:

region​

$ export TF_VAR_region="us-west-2"

The AWS region to run in. You should pick from the supported list as detailed in the README. These are regions that support DynamoDB encryption at rest.

cluster_name​

$ export TF_VAR_cluster_name="teleport-example"

This is the internal Teleport cluster name to use. This should be unique, and not contain spaces, dots (.) or other special characters. Some AWS services will not allow you to use dots in a name, so this should not be set to a domain name. This will appear in the web UI for your cluster and cannot be changed after creation without rebuilding your cluster from scratch, so choose carefully. A good example might be something like teleport-<company-name>.

ami_name​

$ export TF_VAR_ami_name="teleport-ent-17.0.0-dev-x86_64"

Teleport (Gravitational) automatically builds and publishes Teleport Community Edition, Enterprise, and Enterprise FIPS 140-2 AMIs when we release a new version of Teleport. The AMI names follow the format: teleport-<type>-<version>-<arch> where <type> is either oss or ent (Enterprise), <version> is the version of Teleport, e.g. 17.0.0-dev, and <arch> is either x86_64 or arm64.

FIPS 140-2 compatible AMIs (which deploy Teleport in FIPS 140-2 mode by default) have the -fips suffix after <arch>, e.g. teleport-ent-17.0.0-dev-x86_64-fips.

The AWS account ID that publishes these AMIs is 146628656107. You can list the available AMIs with the example awscli commands below. The output is in JSON format by default.

List Teleport AMIs

OSS AMIs

$ aws --region us-west-2 ec2 describe-images --owners 146628656107 --filters 'Name=name,Values=teleport-oss-17.0.0-dev-*'

Enterprise AMIs

$ aws --region us-west-2 ec2 describe-images --owners 146628656107 --filters 'Name=name,Values=teleport-ent-17.0.0-dev-*'

Enterprise FIPS 140-2 AMIs

$ aws --region us-west-2 ec2 describe-images --owners 146628656107 --filters 'Name=name,Values=teleport-ent-17.0.0-dev-*-fips-*'

key_name​

$ export TF_VAR_key_name="exampleuser"

The AWS keypair name to use when deploying EC2 instances. This must exist in the same region as you specify in the region variable, and you will need a copy of this keypair available to connect to the deployed EC2 instances. Do not use a keypair that you do not have access to.

license_path​

The Teleport Auth Service reads a license file to authenticate your Teleport Enterprise account.

To obtain your license file, navigate to your Teleport account dashboard and log in. You can start at teleport.sh and enter your Teleport account name (e.g. my-company). After logging in you will see a "GENERATE LICENSE KEY" button, which will generate a new license file and allow you to download it.

License File Download

$ export TF_VAR_license_path="/home/user/license.pem"

This license will be uploaded to AWS SSM and automatically downloaded to Teleport Auth Service instances in order to enable Teleport Enterprise functionality.

(Teleport Community Edition users can run touch /tmp/license.pem locally to create an empty file, and then provide the path '/tmp/license.pem' here. The license file isn't used in Teleport Community Edition installs.)

route53_zone​

$ export TF_VAR_route53_zone="example.com"

Our Terraform setup requires you to have your domain provisioned in AWS Route 53 - it will automatically add DNS records for route53_domain as set up below. You can list these with this command:

$ aws route53 list-hosted-zones --query "HostedZones[*].Name" --output json
[
    "example.com.",
    "testing.net.",
    "subdomain.wow.org."
]

You should use the appropriate domain without the trailing dot.

route53_domain​

$ export TF_VAR_route53_domain="teleport.example.com"

A subdomain to set up as a CNAME to the Teleport load balancer for web access. This will be the public-facing domain that people use to connect to your Teleport cluster, so choose wisely.

This must be a subdomain of the domain you chose for route53_zone above.

add_wildcard_route53_record​

$ export TF_VAR_add_wildcard_route53_record="true"

Used to enable the Teleport Application Service for subdomains of the Teleport Proxy Service's public web address. A wildcard entry for the public-facing domain will be set in Route 53, e.g., *.teleport.example.com, to point to the Teleport load balancer. For ACM a wildcard certificate is included if this is set to true. Let's Encrypt automatically includes a wildcard subdomain in certificates that it issues.

enable_mongodb_listener​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_mongodb_listener="false"

When set to true, port 27017 is enabled on the Network Load Balancer that connects to the Teleport MongoDB listener port. Required for MongoDB connections, if not using TLS routing.

enable_mysql_listener​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_mysql_listener="false"

Port 3036 is enabled on the Network Load Balancer that connects to the Teleport MySQL listener port. Required for MySQL connections, if not using TLS routing.

enable_postgres_listener​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_postgres_listener="false"

Port 5432 is enabled on the Network Load Balancer that connects to the Teleport PostgreSQL listener port. Required for PostgreSQL connections, if not using TLS routing.

s3_bucket_name​

$ export TF_VAR_s3_bucket_name="teleport-example"

The Terraform example also provisions an S3 bucket to hold certificates provisioned by LetsEncrypt and distribute these to EC2 instances. This can be any S3-compatible name, and will be generated in the same region as set above.

This bucket is still provisioned when using ACM, as it is also used to store Teleport session logs.

Remember that S3 bucket names must be globally unique, so if you see errors relating to S3 provisioning, pick a more unique bucket name.

email​

$ export TF_VAR_email="[email protected]"

Let's Encrypt requires an email address for every certificate registered that can be used to send notifications and useful information. We recommend a generic ops/support email address which the team deploying Teleport has access to.

use_acm​

$ export TF_VAR_use_acm="true"

If set to the string "false", Terraform will use Let's Encrypt to provision the public-facing web UI certificate for the Teleport cluster (route53_domain - so https://teleport.example.com in this example). This uses an AWS network load balancer to load-balance connections to the Teleport cluster's web UI, and its SSL termination is handled by Teleport itself.

If set to the string "true", Terraform will use AWS ACM to provision the public-facing web UI certificate for the cluster. This uses an AWS application load balancer to load-balance connections to the Teleport cluster's web UI, and its SSL termination is handled by the load balancer.

If you wish to use a pre-existing ACM certificate rather than having Terraform generate one for you, you can make Terraform use it by running this command before terraform apply:

$ terraform import aws_acm_certificate.cert <certificate_arn>

We recommend using ACM if possible as it will simplify certificate management for the Teleport cluster.

use_tls_routing​

$ export TF_VAR_use_tls_routing="true"

If set to the string true, Teleport will use TLS routing to multiplex all traffic over a single port. This setting should always be used unless you have a specific need to use separate ports in your setup, as it simplifies deployment.

For the simplest, cheapest deployment, enable both ACM and TLS routing to funnel all traffic through a single Application Load Balancer with an AWS-managed certificate.

teleport_auth_type​

$ export TF_VAR_teleport_auth_type="local"

This value can be used to change the default authentication type used for the Teleport cluster. This is useful for persisting a default authentication type across AMI upgrades when you have a SAML, OIDC, or GitHub connector configured in DynamoDB. The default is local.

  • Teleport Community Edition supports local or github
  • Teleport Enterprise Edition supports local, github, oidc, or saml
  • Teleport Enterprise FIPS deployments have local authentication disabled, so should use github, oidc, or saml

See the Teleport authentication reference for more information.

default_tags​

$ export TF_VAR_default_tags='{"key":"value", "env":"dev"}'

This value can be used to control the default tags applied to all resources, including resources created dynamically by the AWS Auto Scaling Groups (ASG). The default is no tags.

enable_auth_asg_instance_refresh​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_auth_asg_instance_refresh="false"

This variable can be used to enable automatic instance refresh on the Teleport auth server AWS Autoscaling Group (ASG) - the refresh is triggered by changes to the launch template or configuration. Enable the auth ASG instance refresh with caution - upgrading the version of Teleport will trigger an instance refresh and auth servers must be scaled down to only one instance before upgrading your Teleport cluster.

enable_proxy_asg_instance_refresh​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_proxy_asg_instance_refresh="false"

This variable can be used to enable automatic instance refresh on the Teleport proxy server AWS Autoscaling Group (ASG) - the refresh is triggered by changes to the launch template or configuration.

enable_node_asg_instance_refresh​

$ export TF_VAR_enable_node_asg_instance_refresh="false"

This variable can be used to enable automatic instance refresh on the Teleport node server AWS Autoscaling Group (ASG) - the refresh is triggered by changes to the launch template or configuration.

Reference deployment defaults​

Instances​

Our reference deployment will provision the following instances for your cluster using AWS Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) with these default settings:

  • 2 x m7g.large Teleport Auth Service instances in an ASG, behind an internal network load balancer, configured using DynamoDB for shared storage. The desired size of the ASG is configured here
  • 2 x m7g.large Teleport Proxy Service instances in an ASG, behind a public-facing load balancer - NLB for LetsEncrypt, ALB for ACM. The desired size of the ASG is configured here
  • 1 x m7g.large Teleport SSH Service instance in an ASG. Server instances in this ASG will join with Teleport SSH Service enabled and connected to the auth service. The desired size of the ASG is configured here
  • 1 x t4g.medium bastion server which is the only permitted source for inbound SSH traffic to the instances. This is done to avoid exposing each instance to the internet directly.

The instance types used for each ASG can be configured here

If you don't wish to set up a node or the monitoring services, you can set the desired_size and min_size for an ASG to 0 and Terraform will not provision it.

Cluster state database storage​

The reference Terraform deployment sets Teleport up to store its cluster state database in DynamoDB. The name of the table for cluster state will be the same as the cluster name configured in the cluster_name variable above.

In our example, the DynamoDB table would be called teleport-example.

More information about how Teleport works with DynamoDB can be found in our Storage Backends guide.

Audit event storage​

The reference Terraform deployment sets Teleport up to store cluster audit logs in DynamoDB. The name of the table for audit event storage will be the same as the cluster name configured in the cluster_name variable above with -events appended to the end.

In our example, the DynamoDB table would be called teleport-example-events.

More information about how Teleport works with DynamoDB can be found in our Storage Backends guide.

Recorded session storage​

The reference Terraform deployment sets Teleport up to store recorded session logs in the same S3 bucket configured in the s3_bucket_name variable, under the records directory.

In our example this would be s3://teleport-example/records

Tip

S3 provides Amazon S3 Object Lock, which is useful for customers deploying Teleport in regulated environments. Configuration of object lock is out of the scope of this guide.

Cluster domain​

The reference Terraform deployment sets the Teleport cluster up to be available on a domain defined in Route 53, referenced by the route53_domain variable. In our example this would be <Var name="teleport.example.com" />

Teleport's web interface will be available on port 443 - https://teleport.example.com - this is via a configured CNAME to the AWS load balancer.

With use_tls_routing set to true, all Teleport SSH, tunnel, Kubernetes and database traffic will also flow through port 443 on the same hostname as set in route53_domain.

Teleport's Auth Service listener will be available via an internal load balancer with an AWS-controlled hostname on port 3025.

After deploying, you can get the hostname of the internal Auth Service load balancer if needed with this command:

$ aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --names "${TF_VAR_cluster_name}-auth" --query "LoadBalancers[*].DNSName" --output text
# example-cluster-auth-c5b0fc2764ee015b.elb.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

Deploying with Terraform​

Once you have set values for and exported all the variables detailed above, you should run terraform plan to validate the configuration.

$ terraform plan
# Refreshing Terraform state in-memory prior to plan...
# The refreshed state will be used to calculate this plan, but will not be
# persisted to local or remote state storage.

# data.template_file.monitor_user_data: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_kms_alias.ssm: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_caller_identity.current: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_ami.base: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_availability_zones.available: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_route53_zone.proxy: Refreshing state...
# data.aws_region.current: Refreshing state...

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

# An execution plan has been generated and is shown below.
# Resource actions are indicated with the following symbols:
#  + create
# <= read (data resources)

# Terraform will perform the following actions:
#  <output trimmed>

# Plan: 121 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: You didn't specify an "-out" parameter to save this plan, so Terraform
can't guarantee that exactly these actions will be performed if
"terraform apply" is subsequently run.

This looks good (no errors produced by Terraform) so we can run terraform apply:

$ terraform apply
#  <output trimmed>

# Plan: 121 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

# Do you want to perform these actions?
#  Terraform will perform the actions described above.
#  Only 'yes' will be accepted to approve.

#  Enter a value:

Entering yes here will start the Terraform deployment. It takes around 8-10 minutes to deploy in full.

Destroy/shut down a Terraform deployment​

If you need to tear down a running deployment for any reason, you can run terraform destroy.

Accessing the cluster after Terraform setup​

Once the Terraform setup is finished, the URL to your Teleport cluster's web UI will be set in the cluster_web_address Terraform output.

You can see this after deploy by running terraform output -raw cluster_web_address:

$ terraform output -raw cluster_web_address
https://teleport.example.com

Adding an admin user to the Teleport cluster​

To add users to the Teleport cluster, you will need to connect to a Teleport Auth Service instance via SSH and run the tctl command.

  1. Get the public IP of the bastion server using terraform output -raw bastion_ip_public:

    $ export BASTION_IP=$(terraform output -raw bastion_ip_public)
    $ echo ${BASTION_IP}
    # 1.2.3.4

  2. Get the IP of an Auth Service instance by using terraform output -json auth_instance_private_ips and piping to awk to extract the first IP.

    $ export AUTH_IP=$(terraform output -json auth_instance_private_ips | awk -F\" '{print $2}')
    $ echo ${AUTH_IP}
    # 172.31.0.196

  3. Use both these values to SSH into the Auth Service instance. Make sure that the AWS keypair that you specified in the key_name variable is available in the current directory, or update the -i parameter to point to it:

    $ export KEY_NAME=$(terraform output -raw key_name)
    $ ssh -i ${KEY_NAME}.pem -o ProxyCommand="ssh -i ${KEY_NAME}.pem -W '[%h]:%p' ec2-user@${BASTION_IP}" ec2-user@${AUTH_IP}
    # The authenticity of host '1.2.3.4 (1.2.3.4)' can't be established.
    # ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:vFPnCFliRsRQ1Dk+muIv2B1Owm96hXiihlOUsj5H3bg.
    # Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
    # Warning: Permanently added '1.2.3.4' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
    # The authenticity of host '172.31.0.196 (<no hostip for proxy command>)' can't be established.
    # ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:vFPnCFliRsRQ1Dk+muIv2B1Owm96hXiihlOUsj5H3bg.
    # Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
    # Warning: Permanently added '172.31.0.196' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
    # Last login: Tue Mar  3 18:57:12 2020 from 1.2.3.5

    #       __|  __|_  )
    #       _|  (     /   Amazon Linux 2 AMI
    #      ___|\___|___|

    # https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-2/
    # 1 package(s) needed for security, out of 6 available
    # Run "sudo yum update" to apply all updates.
    # [ec2-user@ip-172-31-0-196 ~]$

  4. Use the tctl command to create an admin user for Teleport:

    # From an EC2 Auth Service host
    $ sudo tctl users add teleport-admin --roles=editor,access --logins=root,ec2-user
    # User "teleport-admin" has been created but requires a password. Share this URL with the user to complete user setup, link is valid for 1h:
    # https://teleport.example.com:443/web/newuser/6489ae886babf4232826076279bcb2fb

    # NOTE: Make sure teleport.example.com:443 points at a Teleport proxy which users can access.

  5. Click the link to launch the Teleport web UI and finish setting up your user. You can choose whether to use a WebAuthn-compatible hardware key (like a Yubikey, passkey or Touch ID) or a scan a QR code with a TOTP-compatible app like Google Authenticator or Authy. You will also set a password for the teleport-admin user on this page.

    Once this user is successfully configured, you should be logged into the Teleport web UI.

Logging into the cluster with tsh​

You can use the Teleport command line tool (tsh) to log into your Teleport cluster after provisioning a user.

You can download the Teleport package containing the tsh client from here

  • The client is the same for both Teleport Community Edition and Teleport Enterprise.
# When logging in with tsh, the https:// at the beginning of the URL is not needed
$ export PROXY_ADDRESS=$(terraform output -raw cluster_web_address | sed 's_https://__')
$ tsh login --proxy=${PROXY_ADDRESS} --user=teleport-admin
# Enter password for Teleport user teleport-admin:
# Tap any security key
# Detected security key tap
# > Profile URL:  https://teleport.example.com:443
#  Logged in as: teleport-admin
#  Cluster:      example-cluster
#  Roles:        editor, access
#  Logins:       root
#  Valid until:  2023-10-06 22:07:11 -0400 AST [valid for 12h0m0s]
#  Extensions:   permit-agent-forwarding, permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty

$ tsh ls
# Node Name                    Address           Labels
# ---------------------------- ----------------- ------
# ip-172-31-11-69-ec2-internal 172.31.11.69:3022

$ tsh ssh root@ip-172-31-11-69-ec2-internal
# [root@ip-172-31-11-69 ~]#

Restarting/checking Teleport services​

Teleport Auth Service​

$ systemctl status teleport-auth.service
# ● teleport-auth.service - Teleport Auth Service
#   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/teleport-auth.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
#   Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-03-05 16:45:18 UTC; 4h 14min ago
# Main PID: 3766 (teleport)
#   CGroup: /system.slice/teleport-auth.service
#           └─3766 /usr/bin/teleport start --config=/etc/teleport.yaml --diag-addr=127.0.0.1:3000 --pid-file=/run/teleport/teleport.pid

# Mar 05 17:54:58 ip-172-31-0-196.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[3766]: INFO [CA]        Generating TLS certificate {0x3767920 0xc0012802f0 CN=teleport-admin,O=admin,POSTALCODE={\"kubernetes_groups\":null\,\"logins\":null},STREET=,L=root 2020-03-06 05:54:58.846233666 +0000 UTC []}. common_name:teleport-admin dns_name...
# Mar 05 18:04:39 ip-172-31-0-196.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[3766]: INFO [CA]        Generating TLS certificate {0x3767920 0xc00155d200 CN=teleport-admin,O=admin,POSTALCODE={\"kubernetes_groups\":null\,\"logins\":null},STREET=,L=root 2020-03-06 06:04:39.844777551 +0000 UTC []}. common_name:teleport-admin dns_name...

You can get detailed logs for the Teleport Auth Service using the journalctl command:

$ journalctl -u teleport-auth.service

Remember that there is more than one Teleport Auth Service instance in an High Availability deployment. You should use this command to get the IP addresses of each Auth Service instance that you'll need to connect to:

$ terraform output -json auth_instance_private_ips
["172.31.0.33","172.31.1.136"]

You can run tctl commands on any of the Teleport Auth Service instances connected to your cluster, however.

Teleport Proxy Service​

The systemd service name for the Teleport Proxy Service is different between Let's Encrypt (teleport-proxy.service) and ACM (teleport-proxy-acm.service).

You are using LetsEncrypt if your use_acm variable is set to "false".

$ systemctl status teleport-proxy.service
# ● teleport-proxy.service - Teleport Proxy Service
#   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/teleport-proxy.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
#   Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-03-05 17:14:37 UTC; 3h 47min ago
#  Process: 4502 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/teleport-ssm-get-token (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
# Main PID: 4514 (teleport)
#   CGroup: /system.slice/teleport-proxy.service
#           └─4514 /usr/bin/teleport start --config=/etc/teleport.yaml --diag-addr=127.0.0.1:3000 --pid-file=/run/teleport/teleport.pid

# Mar 05 20:58:25 ip-172-31-2-109.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[4514]: ERRO             read tcp 172.31.2.109:3024->172.31.2.143:1577: read: connection reset by peer
# Mar 05 20:58:50 ip-172-31-2-109.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[4514]: ERRO             read tcp 172.31.2.109:3023->172.31.2.143:38011: read: connection reset by peer

You can get detailed logs for the Teleport Proxy Service using the journalctl command:

$ journalctl -u teleport-proxy.service

Remember that there is more than one Teleport Proxy Service instance in an High Availability deployment. You can use this command to get the IP addresses of each proxy instance that you'd need to connect to for checking logs:

$ terraform output -json proxy_instance_private_ips
["172.31.2.221","172.31.3.12"]

Teleport SSH Service​

$ systemctl status teleport-node.service
# ● teleport-node.service - Teleport SSH Node Service
#   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/teleport-node.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
#   Active: active (running) since Thu 2020-03-05 17:18:25 UTC; 3h 44min ago
#  Process: 4444 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/teleport-ssm-get-token (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
# Main PID: 4456 (teleport)
#   CGroup: /system.slice/teleport-node.service
#           └─4456 /usr/bin/teleport start --config=/etc/teleport.yaml --diag-addr=127.0.0.1:3000 --pid-file=/run/teleport/teleport.pid

# Mar 05 17:18:25 ip-172-31-11-69.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[4456]: INFO [AUDIT:1]   Creating directory /var/lib/teleport/log/upload/sessions. ser...o:1630
# Mar 05 17:18:25 ip-172-31-11-69.ec2.internal /usr/bin/teleport[4456]: INFO [AUDIT:1]   Setting directory /var/lib/teleport/log/upload/sessions owner...o:1639

You can get detailed logs for the Teleport SSH Service using the journalctl command:

$ journalctl -u teleport-node.service

Adding agents to your Teleport cluster​

Customers run many workloads within AWS and depending on how you work, there are many ways to integrate Teleport onto your servers. We recommend looking at our Installation guide.

To add new nodes/EC2 servers that you can "SSH into" you'll need to:

Getting the SSH Service join token​

You can use this command to get a join token for your Teleport cluster:

$ CLUSTER_NAME=$(terraform output -raw cluster_name)
$ aws ssm get-parameter --region us-west-2 --name "/teleport/${CLUSTER_NAME}/tokens/node" --query "Parameter.Value" --with-decryption --output text --no-cli-pager
# 992a9725-0a64-428d-8e5e-308e6877743d

You can also generate an SSH Service join token using tctl tokens add --type=node as detailed here in our admin guide.

Joining agents to the cluster​

The easiest way to quickly join nodes to your cluster is to use the "Enroll New Resource" wizard in the Teleport web UI.

To manually join Teleport agents to your cluster, you will need a join token.

You should join your agents using the public facing Proxy Service address - teleport.example.com:443 for our example.

teleport:
  proxy_server: teleport.example.com:443

Trusted clusters​

To add a trusted cluster, you'll need the hostname of the proxy load balancer.

In this example, the web_proxy_addr in the trusted cluster configuration should be set up like this:

spec:
  web_proxy_addr: teleport.example.com:443

You can generate a token for adding the trusted cluster using tctl tokens add --type=trusted_cluster after connecting to a Teleport Auth Service instance. Follow the instructions in our Trusted Clusters guide.

Script to quickly connect to instances​

You can use the connect.sh script in the examples/aws/terraform/ha-autoscale-cluster directory to get SSH access to your Teleport instances through the deployed bastion instance.

# Make the script executable
$ chmod +x connect.sh

# Example usage
# Connect to the first Teleport Auth Service instance
$ ./connect.sh auth 0

# Connect to the second Teleport Auth Service instance
$ ./connect.sh auth 1

# Connect to the first Teleport Proxy Service instance
$ ./connect.sh proxy 0

# Connect to the second Teleport Proxy Service instance
$ ./connect.sh proxy 1

# Connect to the example Teleport SSH Service instance
$ ./connect.sh node

Troubleshooting​

AWS quotas​

If your deployment of Teleport services brings you over your default service quotas, you can request a quota increase from the AWS Support Center. See Amazon's AWS service quotas documentation for more information.

For example, when using DynamoDB as the backend for Teleport cluster state, you may need to request increases for read/write quotas.