Securing Infrastructure Access at Scale in Large Enterprises
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Teleport

Database Access with Elasticsearch

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Teleport can provide secure access to Elasticsearch via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through the Teleport RBAC system.

The Teleport Database Service proxies traffic from database clients to self-hosted databases in your infrastructure. Teleport maintains a certificate authority for database clients. You configure your database to trust the Teleport database client CA, and the Teleport Database Service presents certificates signed by this CA when proxying user traffic. With this setup, there is no need to store long-lived credentials for self-hosted databases.

Meanwhile, the Teleport Database Service verifies self-hosted databases by checking their TLS certificates against either the Teleport database CA or a custom CA chosen by the user.

In this guide, you will:

  1. Configure your Elasticsearch database for Teleport access.
  2. Add the database to your Teleport cluster.
  3. Connect to the database via Teleport.

How it works

The Teleport Database Service authenticates to your self-hosted Elasticsearch database using mutual TLS. Elasticsearch trusts the Teleport certificate authority for database clients, and presents a certificate signed by either the Teleport database CA or a custom CA. When a user initiates a database session, the Teleport Database Service presents a certificate signed by Teleport. The authenticated connection then proxies client traffic from the user.

Prerequisites

  • A running Teleport cluster version 15.4.22 or above. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl admin tool and tsh client tool.

    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 downloading tctl and tsh for Teleport Community Edition.

  • A self-hosted Elasticsearch database. Elastic Cloud does not support client certificates, which are required for setting up the Database Service.

  • A host where you will run the Teleport Database Service.

    See Installation for details.

  • Optional: a certificate authority that issues certificates for your self-hosted database.

  • To check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster, sign in with tsh login, then verify that you can run tctl commands using your current credentials. tctl is supported on macOS and Linux machines.

    For example:

    tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=email@example.com
    tctl status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  15.4.22
    CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

    If you can connect to the cluster and run the tctl status command, you can use your current credentials to run subsequent tctl commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also run tctl commands on the computer that hosts the Teleport Auth Service for full permissions.

Step 1/5. Set up the Teleport Database Service

The Database Service requires a valid join token to join your Teleport cluster. Run the following tctl command and save the token output in /tmp/token on the server that will run the Database Service:

tctl tokens add --type=db --format=text
abcd123-insecure-do-not-use-this

Install and configure Teleport where you will run the Teleport Database Service:

Install Teleport on your Linux server:

  1. Assign edition to one of the following, depending on your Teleport edition:

    EditionValue
    Teleport Enterprise Cloudcloud
    Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted)enterprise
    Teleport Community Editionoss

  2. 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.com
    TELEPORT_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.com
    TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/ping | jq -r '.server_version')"

  3. Install Teleport on your Linux server:

    curl https://cdn.teleport.dev/install-v15.4.22.sh | bash -s ${TELEPORT_VERSION} edition

    The 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.

Run the following command to generate a configuration file at /etc/teleport.yaml for the Database Service. Update example.teleport.sh to use the host and port of the Teleport Proxy Service:

sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=example.teleport.sh \   --name=myelastic \   --protocol=elastic \   --uri=elasticsearch.example.com:9200 \   --labels=env=dev

To configure the Teleport Database Service to trust a custom CA:

  1. Export a CA certificate for the custom CA and make it available at /var/lib/teleport/db.ca on the Teleport Database Service host.

  2. Run a variation of the command above that uses the --ca-cert-file flag. This configures the Teleport Database Service to use the CA certificate at db.ca to verify traffic from the database:

    sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 \   --name=myelastic \   --protocol=elastic \   --uri=elasticsearch.example.com:9200 \   --ca-cert-file="/var/lib/teleport/db.ca" \   --labels=env=dev

If your database servers use certificates that are signed by a public CA such as ComodoCA or DigiCert, you can use the trust_system_cert_pool option without exporting the CA:

sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 \   --name=myelastic \   --protocol=elastic \   --uri=elasticsearch.example.com:9200 \   --trust_system_cert_pool \   --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 teleport
sudo 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.service
sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo 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 a Teleport agent into your Kubernetes Cluster with the Teleport Database Service configuration.

Create a file called values.yaml with the following content. Update example.teleport.sh to use the host and port of the Teleport Proxy Service and JOIN_TOKEN to the join token you created earlier:

roles: db
proxyAddr: example.teleport.sh
# Set to false if using Teleport Community Edition
enterprise: true
authToken: "JOIN_TOKEN"
databases:
  - name: myelastic
    uri: elasticsearch.example.com:9200
    protocol: elastic
    static_labels:
      env: dev

To configure the Teleport Database Service to trust a custom CA:

  1. Export a CA certificate for the custom CA and make it available at db.ca on your workstation.

  2. Create a secret containing the database CA certificate in the same namespace as Teleport using the following command:

    kubectl create secret generic db-ca --from-file=ca.pem=/path/to/db.ca

  3. Add the following to values.yaml:

      roles: db
  proxyAddr: example.teleport.sh
  # Set to false if using Teleport Community Edition
  enterprise: true
  authToken: JOIN_TOKEN
  databases:
    - name: myelastic
      uri: elasticsearch.example.com:9200
      protocol: elastic
+     tls:
+       ca_cert_file: "/etc/teleport-tls-db/db-ca/ca.pem"
      static_labels:
        env: dev
+ extraVolumes:
+   - name: db-ca
+     secret:
+       secretName: db-ca
+ extraVolumeMounts:
+   - name: db-ca
+     mountPath: /etc/teleport-tls-db/db-ca
+     readOnly: true

  4. Install the chart:

    helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \  --create-namespace \  --namespace teleport-agent \  --version 15.4.22 \  -f values.yaml

  5. 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 pods
    NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGEteleport-kube-agent-0   1/1     Running   0          32s
Tip

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 2/5. Create a Teleport user

Tip

To modify an existing user to provide access to the Database Service, see Database 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
FlagDescription
--rolesList of roles to assign to the user. The builtin access role allows them to connect to any database server registered with Teleport.
--db-usersList of database usernames the user will be allowed to use when connecting to the databases. A wildcard allows any user.
--db-namesList of logical databases (aka schemas) the user will be allowed to connect to within a database server. A wildcard allows any database.
Warning

Database names are only enforced for PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Cloud Spanner databases.

For more detailed information about database access controls and how to restrict access see RBAC documentation.

Step 3/5. Create a role mapping

Define a role mapping in Elasticsearch to assign your Teleport user(s) or role(s) to an Elasticsearch role. The example below maps the Teleport user alice to the user role in Elasticsearch.

curl -u elastic:your_elasticsearch_password -X POST "https://elasticsearch.example.com:9200/_security/role_mapping/mapping1?pretty" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{  "roles": [ "user"],  "enabled": true,  "rules": {    "field" : { "username" : "alice" }  },  "metadata" : {    "version" : 1  }}'

In a scenario where Teleport is using single sign-on you may want to define a mapping for all users to a role:

curl -u elastic:your_elasticsearch_password -X POST "https://elasticsearch.example.com:9200/_security/role_mapping/mapping1?pretty" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'
{  "roles": [ "monitoring"],  "enabled": true,  "rules": {    "field" : { "username" : "*@example.com" }  },  "metadata" : {    "version" : 1  }}'

Step 4/5. Set up mutual TLS

Teleport uses mutual TLS authentication with self-hosted databases. These databases must be able to verify certificates presented by the Teleport Database Service. Self-hosted databases also need a certificate/key pair that Teleport can verify.

By default, the Teleport Database Service trusts certificates issued by a certificate authority managed by the Teleport Auth Service. You can either:

  • Configure your self-hosted database to trust this CA, and instruct Teleport to issue a certificate for the database to present to the Teleport Database Service.
  • Configure the Database Service to trust a custom CA.

To configure the database to trust the Teleport CA and issue a certificate for the database, follow these instructions on your workstation:

  1. To use tctl from your workstation, 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 user's role:

    allow:
  impersonate:
    users: ["Db"]
    roles: ["Db"]

  2. Export Teleport's certificate authority and a generate certificate/key pair. This example generates a certificate with a 1-year validity period. db.example.com is the hostname where the Teleport Database Service can reach the Elasticsearch server.

    tctl auth sign --format=elasticsearch --host=db.example.com --out=server --ttl=2190h
    TTL

    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 creates 3 files: server.cas, server.crt and server.key.

If the Elasticsearch database already has a CA that it uses to sign certificates , you only need to export a Teleport CA certificate for the database to authenticate traffic from the Teleport Database Service. You do not need to enable Db impersonation privileges.

  1. Replace example.teleport.sh:443 with the host and web port of the Teleport Proxy Service in your cluster. Run the following command on your workstation:

    tctl auth export --type=db-client --auth-server=example.teleport.sh:443 > db-client.cas

    The command creates 1 file, db-client.cas.

  2. Append the contents of db-client.cas to your database's existing CA cert file, which this guide expects to be called server.cas.

  3. Generate server.crt and server.key by retrieving a TLS certificate and private key from your existing database CA, signed for your database server. You will use these files later in the guide.

Use the generated secrets to enable mutual TLS in your elasticsearch.yml configuration file:

xpack.security.http.ssl:
  certificate_authorities: /path/to/server.cas
  certificate: /path/to/server.crt
  key: /path/to/server.key
  enabled: true
  client_authentication: required
  verification_mode: certificate

xpack.security.authc.realms.pki.pki1:
  order: 1
  enabled: true
  certificate_authorities: /path/to/server.cas

Restart Elasticsearch to enable this configuration. Once mutual TLS has been enabled, you will no longer be able to connect to the cluster without providing a valid client certificate. You can set xpack.security.http.ssl.client_authentication to optional to allow connections from clients that do not present a certificate, using other methods like username and password.

Step 5/5. Connect

Log into your Teleport cluster and see available databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                        Description Allowed Users Labels  Connect--------------------------- ----------- ------------- ------- ------------------------> myelastic (user: elastic)             [*]           env=dev tsh db connect myelastic
tsh login --proxy=mytennant.teleport.sh --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                        Description Allowed Users Labels  Connect--------------------------- ----------- ------------- ------- ------------------------> myelastic (user: elastic)             [*]           env=dev tsh db connect myelastic

To connect to a particular database instance:

tsh db connect myelastic --db-user=alice

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

Remove credentials for a particular database instance.
tsh db logout myelastic
Remove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout

Tunneled connection example

We can create a tunneled connection to Elasticsearch to use with GUI applications like Elasticvue:

tsh proxy db myelastic --db-user=alice --tunnel
Started authenticated tunnel for the Elasticsearch database "myelastic" in cluster "teleport.example.com" on 127.0.0.1:53657.
Use one of the following commands to connect to the database:
  * interactive SQL connection: 
  $ elasticsearch-sql-cli http://localhost:53657/
  * run single request with curl: 
  $ curl http://localhost:53657/

Note the assigned port, and provide it to your GUI client:

Next steps

  • Take a look at the YAML configuration reference.