Teleport
Database Access with Self-Hosted MySQL/MariaDB
- Version 16.x
- Version 15.x
- Version 14.x
- Version 13.x
- Older Versions
Teleport can provide secure access to MySQL or MariaDB via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.
In this guide, you will:
- Configure an MySQL or MariaDB database with mutual TLS authentication.
- Join the MySQL or MariaDB database to your Teleport cluster.
- Connect to the MySQL or MariaDB database via the Teleport Database Service.
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
admin tool andtsh
client tool version >= 15.2.2.On Teleport Enterprise, you must use the Enterprise version of
tctl
, which you can download from your Teleport account workspace. Otherwise, visit Installation for instructions on downloadingtctl
andtsh
for Teleport Community Edition.
- A self-hosted MySQL or MariaDB instance.
- A host, e.g., an Amazon EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.
- To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with
tsh login
, then verify that you can runtctl
commands using your current credentials.tctl
is supported on macOS and Linux machines. For example:If you can connect to the cluster and run thetsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]tctl statusCluster teleport.example.com
Version 15.2.2
CA pin sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678
tctl status
command, you can use your current credentials to run subsequenttctl
commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also runtctl
commands on the computer that hosts the Teleport Auth Service for full permissions.
Step 1/4. Create the Teleport Database Token
The Database Service requires a valid auth token to connect to the cluster. Generate
one by running the following command against your Teleport Auth Service and save
it in /tmp/token
on the node that will run the Database Service:
tctl tokens add --type=db
Step 2/4. Create a certificate/key pair
Teleport uses mutual TLS authentication with self-hosted databases. These databases must be configured with Teleport's certificate authority to be able to verify client certificates. They also need a certificate/key pair that Teleport can verify.
If you are using Teleport Cloud, your Teleport user must be allowed to
impersonate the system role Db
in order to be able to generate the database
certificate.
Include the following allow
rule in in your Teleport Cloud user's role:
allow:
impersonate:
users: ["Db"]
roles: ["Db"]
From your local workstation, create the secrets:
Export Teleport's certificate authority and generate certificate/key pair
for host db.example.com with a 3-month validity period.
tctl auth sign --format=db --host=db.example.com --out=server --ttl=2190h
In this example, db.example.com
is the hostname where the Teleport Database
Service can reach the MySQL server.
We recommend using a shorter TTL, but keep mind that you'll need to update the database server certificate before it expires to not lose the ability to connect. Pick the TTL value that best fits your use-case.
The command will create 3 files: server.cas
, server.crt
and server.key
which you'll need to enable mutual TLS on your MySQL server. Copy these files
to the environment running MySQL
Step 3/4. Configure MySQL/MariaDB
To configure MySQL to accept TLS connections, add the following to your
MySQL configuration file, mysql.cnf
:
[mysqld]
require_secure_transport=ON
ssl-ca=/path/to/server.cas
ssl-cert=/path/to/server.crt
ssl-key=/path/to/server.key
To configure MariaDB to accept TLS connections, add the following to your
MariaDB configuration file, mysql.cnf
:
[mariadb]
require_secure_transport=ON
ssl-ca=/path/to/server.cas
ssl-cert=/path/to/server.crt
ssl-key=/path/to/server.key
Additionally, your MySQL/MariaDB database user accounts must be configured to require a valid client certificate.
Create a new user:
CREATE USER 'alice'@'%' REQUIRE SUBJECT '/CN=alice';
By default, the created user may not have access to anything and won't be able to connect, so let's grant it some permissions:
GRANT ALL ON `%`.* TO 'alice'@'%';
This is an example command that grants database-wide permissions to a user. In a production environment you should follow the principle of least privilege
Because Teleport uses certificates to authenticate database users, the user must not have a password set. Note that removing an existing user's password may break existing integrations. Consider using a new Database user specifically for Teleport access.
Update the existing user to require a valid certificate:
ALTER USER 'alice'@'%' REQUIRE SUBJECT '/CN=alice';
Remove the password from the user:
SET PASSWORD FOR 'alice'@'%' = PASSWORD("");
See Configuring MySQL to Use Encrypted Connections in the MySQL documentation or Enabling TLS on MariaDB Server in the MariaDB documentation for more details.
Create a Teleport user
To modify an existing user to provide access to the Database Service, see Database Access Access Controls
Create a local Teleport user with the built-in access
role:
tctl users add \ --roles=access \ --db-users=\* \ --db-names=\* \ alice
Create a local Teleport user with the built-in access
and requester
roles:
tctl users add \ --roles=access,requester \ --db-users=\* \ --db-names=\* \ alice
Flag | Description |
---|---|
--roles | List of roles to assign to the user. The builtin access role allows them to connect to any database server registered with Teleport. |
--db-users | List of database usernames the user will be allowed to use when connecting to the databases. A wildcard allows any user. |
--db-names | List of logical databases (aka schemas) the user will be allowed to connect to within a database server. A wildcard allows any database. |
Database names are only enforced for PostgreSQL and MongoDB databases.
For more detailed information about database access controls and how to restrict access see RBAC documentation.
Configure and Start the Database Service
Install and configure Teleport where you will run the Teleport Database Service:
Install Teleport on your Linux server:
-
Assign edition to one of the following, depending on your Teleport edition:
Edition Value Teleport Enterprise Cloud cloud
Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted) enterprise
Teleport Community Edition oss
-
Get the version of Teleport to install. If you have automatic agent updates enabled in your cluster, query the latest Teleport version that is compatible with the updater:
TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.comTELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"Otherwise, get the version of your Teleport cluster:
TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.comTELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/ping | jq -r '.server_version')" -
Install Teleport on your Linux server:
curl https://goteleport.com/static/install.sh | bash -s ${TELEPORT_VERSION} editionThe installation script detects the package manager on your Linux server and uses it to install Teleport binaries. To customize your installation, learn about the Teleport package repositories in the installation guide.
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, start Teleport with the appropriate configuration.
Note that a single Teleport process can run multiple different services, for
example multiple Database Service agents as well as the SSH Service or Application
Service. The step below will overwrite an existing configuration file, so if
you're running multiple services add --output=stdout
to print the config in
your terminal, and manually adjust /etc/teleport.yaml
.
Generate a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml
for the Database Service:
sudo teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --token=/tmp/token \ --proxy=teleport.example.com:443 \ --name=example-mysql \ --protocol=mysql \ --uri=mysql.example.com:3306 \ --labels=env=dev
sudo teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --token=/tmp/token \ --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \ --name=example-mysql \ --protocol=mysql \ --uri=mysql.example.com:3306 \ --labels=env=dev
Configure the Teleport Database Service to start automatically when the host boots up by creating a systemd service for it. The instructions depend on how you installed the Teleport Database Service.
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, enable and start Teleport:
sudo systemctl enable teleportsudo systemctl start teleport
On the host where you will run the Teleport Database Service, create a systemd service configuration for Teleport, enable the Teleport service, and start Teleport:
sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.servicesudo systemctl enable teleportsudo systemctl start teleport
You can check the status of the Teleport Database Service with systemctl status teleport
and view its logs with journalctl -fu teleport
.
Teleport provides Helm charts for installing the Teleport Database Service in Kubernetes Clusters.
Set up the Teleport Helm repository.
Allow Helm to install charts that are hosted in the Teleport Helm repository:
helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev
Update the cache of charts from the remote repository so you can upgrade to all available releases:
helm repo update
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \ --create-namespace \ --namespace teleport-agent \ --set roles=db \ --set proxyAddr=teleport.example.com:443 \ --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=example-mysql" \ --set "databases[0].uri=mysql.example.com:3306" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=mysql" \ --set "labels.env=dev" \ --version 15.2.2
Install the Teleport Kube Agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.
JOIN_TOKEN=$(cat /tmp/token)helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \ --create-namespace \ --namespace teleport-agent \ --set roles=db \ --set proxyAddr=mytenant.teleport.sh:443 \ --set authToken=${JOIN_TOKEN?} \ --set "databases[0].name=example-mysql" \ --set "databases[0].uri=mysql.example.com:3306" \ --set "databases[0].protocol=mysql" \ --set "labels.env=dev" \ --version 15.2.2
Make sure that the Teleport agent pod is running. You should see one
teleport-kube-agent
pod with a single ready container:
kubectl -n teleport-agent get podsNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEteleport-kube-agent-0 1/1 Running 0 32s
A single Teleport process can run multiple services, for example multiple Database Service instances as well as other services such the SSH Service or Application Service.
Step 4/4. Connect
Once the Database Service has joined the cluster, log in to see the available databases:
tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alicetsh db lsName Description Labels
------------- ------------- --------
example-mysql Example MySQL env=dev
tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --user=alicetsh db lsName Description Labels
------------- ------------- --------
example-mysql Example MySQL env=dev
Note that you will only be able to see databases your role has access to. See the RBAC guide for more details.
To retrieve credentials for a database and connect to it:
tsh db connect --db-user=root --db-name=mysql example-mysql
The mysql
or mariadb
command-line client should be available in PATH
in order to be
able to connect. mariadb
is a default command-line client for MySQL and MariaDB.
To log out of the database and remove credentials:
Remove credentials for a particular database instance.
tsh db logout example-mysqlRemove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout