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Version: 18.x (unreleased)

Database Access with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey

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Teleport can provide secure access to Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.

In this guide, you will:

  1. Configure your Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey database with IAM authentication.
  2. Add the database to your Teleport cluster.
  3. Connect to the database via Teleport.

How it works​

The Teleport Database Service proxies traffic from users to Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey for Redis and Valkey. Authentication between the Database Service and the Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey can take one of two forms:

  • IAM authentication (preferred): The Teleport Database Service connects to the database using a short-lived AWS IAM authentication token. AWS IAM authentication is available for Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey with engine version 7.0 or above.
  • Managing users: The Teleport Database Service manages users in a access control list, rotates their passwords every 15 minutes, and saves these passwords in AWS Secrets Manager. The Database Service automatically sends an AUTH command with the saved password when connecting the client to the Amazon ElastiCache for Redis and Valkey server.

This guide shows how to register a single Amazon Elasticache with your Teleport cluster. For a more scalable approach, learn how to set up Database Auto-Discovery to automatically enroll all AWS databases in your infrastructure.

Prerequisites​

  • A running Teleport cluster version 17.0.0-dev or above. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl and tsh clients.

    Details

    Installing tctl and tsh clients

    Download the signed macOS .pkg installer for Teleport, which includes the tctl and tsh clients:

    curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-17.0.0-dev.pkg

    In Finder double-click the pkg file to begin installation.

    danger

    Using Homebrew to install Teleport is not supported. The Teleport package in Homebrew is not maintained by Teleport and we can't guarantee its reliability or security.

    The tctl and tsh clients must be at most one major version behind your Teleport cluster version. Send a GET request to the Proxy Service at /v1/webapi/ping and use a JSON query tool to obtain your cluster version:

    curl https://example.teleport.sh/v1/webapi/ping | jq -r '.server_version'
    17.0.0-dev
  • AWS account with an ElastiCache for Redis or Valkey cluster. In-transit encryption via (TLS) must be enabled.
  • Permissions to create and attach IAM policies.
  • redis-cli version 6.2 or newer installed and added to your system's PATH environment variable.
  • A host, e.g., an EC2 instance, where you will run the Teleport Database Service.
  • ACL enabled for your ElastiCache cluster.
  • A running Teleport Discovery Service if you plan to use Database Auto-Discovery.
  • 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. For example, run the following command, assigning teleport.example.com to the domain name of the Teleport Proxy Service in your cluster and email@example.com to your Teleport username: 
    tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=email@example.com
    tctl status
    Cluster  teleport.example.com
    Version  17.0.0-dev
    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 1/6. 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
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 2/6. Create a Database Service configuration​

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
Details

Alternative methods

For users with a lot of infrastructure in AWS, or who might create or recreate many instances, consider alternative methods for joining new EC2 instances running Teleport:

To install a Teleport Agent on your Linux server:

The easiest installation method, for Teleport versions 17.3 and above, is the cluster install script. It will use the best version, edition, and installation mode for your cluster.

  1. Assign teleport.example.com:443 to your Teleport cluster hostname and port, but not the scheme (https://).

  2. Run your cluster's install script:

    curl "https://teleport.example.com:443/scripts/install.sh" | sudo bash

On older Teleport versions:

  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:443
    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:443
    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.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.

Create the Database Service configuration:

ELASTICACHE_URI=""
sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --name="elasticache" \   --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 \   --protocol="redis" \   --uri=${ELASTICACHE_URI?} \   --token=/tmp/token

Change example.teleport.sh:443 to the host and port of your Teleport Proxy Service. Set ELASTICACHE_URI to the domain name and port of your ElastiCache database.

The command will generate a Database Service configuration and place it at the /etc/teleport.yaml location.

Step 3/6. Create an IAM role for Teleport​

The Teleport Database Service needs AWS IAM permissions to provide access to ElastiCache databases.

Create an IAM role for Teleport​

Grant the Database Service access to credentials that it can use to authenticate to AWS.

  • If you are running the Database Service on an EC2 instance, you may use the EC2 Instance Metadata Service method
  • If you are running the Database Service in Kubernetes, you can use IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA)
  • Otherwise, you must use environment variables

Teleport will detect when it is running on an EC2 instance and use the Instance Metadata Service to fetch credentials.

The EC2 instance should be configured to use an EC2 instance profile. For more information, see: Using Instance Profiles.

Details

Have multiple sources of AWS credentials?

Teleport's AWS client loads credentials from different sources in the following order:

  • Environment Variables
  • Shared credentials file
  • Shared configuration file (Teleport always enables shared configuration)
  • EC2 Instance Metadata (credentials only)

While you can provide AWS credentials via a shared credentials file or shared configuration file, you will need to run the Database Service with the AWS_PROFILE environment variable assigned to the name of your profile of choice.

If you have a specific use case that the instructions above do not account for, consult the documentation for the AWS SDK for Go for a detailed description of credential loading behavior.

Grant permissions​

ElastiCache supports IAM authentication for Redis and Valkey engine version 7.0 or above. This is the recommended way to configure Teleport access to ElastiCache.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "ElastiCacheFetchMetadata",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "elasticache:DescribeReplicationGroups",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "ElastiCacheDescribeUsers",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "elasticache:DescribeUsers",
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "ElastiCacheConnect",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "elasticache:Connect",
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}
StatementPurpose
ElastiCacheFetchMetadataAutomatically import AWS tags as database labels or find missing information such as the database's AWS region.
ElastiCacheDescribeUsersDetermine whether a user is compatible with IAM authentication.
ElastiCacheConnectConnect using IAM authentication.

You can reduce the scope of the ElastiCacheConnect statement by updating it to only allow specific ElastiCache clusters and IAM users. The resource ARN you can specify has the following formats:

arn:aws:elasticache:{Region}:{AccountID}:replicationgroup:{ReplicationGroup}arn:aws:elasticache:{Region}:{AccountID}:user:{UserName}

See Authenticating with IAM for ElastiCache for more information.

Step 4/6. Start the Database Service​

Configure the 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 Database Service.

On the host where you will run the Database Service, enable and start Teleport:

sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

You can check the status of the Database Service with systemctl status teleport and view its logs with journalctl -fu teleport.

Step 5/6. Configure authentication for ElastiCache users​

Configure authentication for your ElastiCache database. The steps to follow depend on whether you want to enable the Teleport Database Service to use IAM authentication with ElastiCache, or authentication based on managing passwords via AWS Secrets Manager:

To enable ACL, please see Authenticating users with Role-Based Access Control for ElastiCache.

Some additional limitations apply when using IAM authentication - for more information, see: ElastiCache Auth IAM Limits.

There are a few requirements for configuring an ElastiCache IAM-enabled user:

  • the user must have identical username and user id properties.
  • the user must have authentication mode set to "IAM".
  • the user must be attached to an ElastiCache user group.

Create an ElastiCache IAM-enabled user. The following example creates an ElastiCache user with the access string on ~* +@all that represents an active user with access to all available keys and commands:

aws elasticache create-user \  --user-name iam-user-01 \  --user-id iam-user-01 \  --authentication-mode Type=iam \  --engine redis \  --access-string "on ~* +@all"
Access Strings

You may prefer a less permissive access string for your ElastiCache users. For more information about ElastiCache access strings, please see: ElastiCache Cluster RBAC Access String.

Create an ElastiCache user group and attach it to your ElastiCache replication group:

aws elasticache create-user-group \  --user-group-id iam-user-group-01 \  --engine redis \  --user-ids default iam-user-01
aws elasticache modify-replication-group \  --replication-group-id replication-group-01 \  --user-group-ids-to-add iam-user-group-01

Once the ElastiCache user has been created, verify that the user is configured to satisfy the requirements for IAM authentication:

If you choose not to use the above options, Teleport will not automatically authenticate with the database.

You can either set up a "no password" configuration for your ElastiCache user, or manually enter an AUTH command with the password you have configured after a successful client connection. However, it is strongly advised to use one of the first two options or a strong password for better security.

Step 6/6. Connect​

Once the Database Service has started and joined the cluster, log in to see the registered databases:

tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name                        Description Labels
--------------------------- ----------- --------
my-cluster-mode-elasticache             ...
my-elasticache                          ...
my-elasticache-reader                   ...

To retrieve credentials for a database and connect to it:

tsh db connect --db-user=my-database-user my-elasticache

If flag --db-user is not provided, Teleport logs in as the default user.

Now, depending on the authentication configurations, you may need to send an AUTH command to authenticate with the Redis server:

The Database Service automatically authenticates Teleport-managed and IAM-enabled users with the database. No AUTH command is required after successful connection.

If you are connecting as a user that is not managed by Teleport and is not IAM-enabled, the connection normally starts as the default user. Now you can authenticate the database user with its password:

AUTH my-database-user <USER_PASSWORD>

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

Remove credentials for a particular database instance.
tsh db logout my-elasticache
Remove credentials for all database instances.
tsh db logout

Troubleshooting​

Certificate error​

If your tsh db connect error includes the following text, you likely have an RDS or DocumentDB database created before July 28, 2020, which presents an X.509 certificate that is incompatible with Teleport:

x509: certificate relies on legacy Common Name field, use SANs instead

AWS provides instructions to rotate your SSL/TLS certificate.

No credential providers error​

If you see the error NoCredentialProviders: no valid providers in chain in Database Service logs then Teleport is not detecting the required credentials to connect via AWS IAM permissions. Check whether the credentials or security role has been applied in the machine running the Teleport Database Service.

When running on EKS, this error may occur if the Teleport Database Service cannot access IMDSv2 when the PUT requests hop limit on the worker node instance is set to 1. You can use the following commands to check the hop limit:

aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids <node-instance-id> | grep HttpPutResponseHopLimit
                        "HttpPutResponseHopLimit": 1,

See IMDSv2 support for EKS and EKS best practices for more details.

Timeout errors​

The Teleport Database Service needs connectivity to your database endpoints. That may require enabling inbound traffic on the database from the Database Service on the same VPC or routing rules from another VPC. Using the nc program you can verify connections to databases:

nc -zv postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com 5432
Connection to postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com (172.31.24.172) 5432 port [tcp/postgresql] succeeded!

Not authorized to perform sts:AssumeRole​

The Database Service assumes an IAM role in one of following situations:

  • A Teleport user specifies an IAM role as the database user they wish to use when accessing AWS services that require IAM roles as database users. Databases that support using an IAM role as a database user include: DynamoDB, Keyspaces, Opensearch, Redshift, and Redshift Serverless.
  • The assume_role_arn field is specified for the database resources or dynamic resource matchers.
Details

What if both situations apply? (role chaining) When both of the above conditions are true for a database connection, the Database Service performs a role chaining by assuming the IAM role specified in assume_role_arn first, then using that IAM role to assume the IAM role for the database user.

You may encounter the following error if the trust relationship is not configured properly between the IAM roles:

AccessDenied: User: arn:aws:sts::111111111111:assumed-role/teleport-db-service-role/i-* is not authorized to perform: sts:AssumeRole on resource: arn:aws:iam::111111111111:role/db-user-role
Details

how to properly configure the trust relationship?

To allow IAM Role teleport-db-service-role to assume IAM Role db-user-role, the following is generally required:

1. Configure Trust Relationships on db-user-role

teleport-db-service-role or its AWS account should be set as Principal in db-user-role's trust policy.

Assign aws-account-id to your AWS account ID:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:role/teleport-db-service-role"
      },
      "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
    }
  ]
}

2. Configure Permissions Policies on teleport-db-service-role

teleport-db-service-role requires sts:AssumeRole permissions, for example:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:role/db-user-role"
        }
    ]
}

Note that this policy can be omitted when teleport-db-service-role and db-user-role are in the same AWS account and teleport-db-service-role's full ARN is configured as Principal in db-user-role's trust policy.

3. Configure Permissions Boundary on teleport-db-service-role

If teleport-db-service-role does not have an attached Permissions boundary then you can skip this step. Otherwise, the boundary policy attached to teleport-db-service-role must include sts:AssumeRole permissions, for example:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
}

You can test the trust relationship by running this AWS CLI command as teleport-db-service-role:

aws sts assume-role --role-arn arn:aws:iam::111111111111:role/db-user-role --role-session-name test-trust-relationship

Learn more on how to use trust policies with IAM roles.

Next steps​

  • Take a look at the YAML configuration reference.