admin-guide.md

Admin Manual

This manual covers installation and configuration of Teleport and the ongoing management of a Teleport cluster. It assumes that the reader has good understanding of Linux administration.

!!! danger "IMPORTANT": At this time Teleport is NOT recommended for production use, but the code is open and available for your security team to inspect. Currently Teleport is undergoing an independent security review. We will be more comfortable recommending it for production use once the review will have completed.

Installation

Installing from Source

Gravitational Teleport is written in Go language. It requires Golang v1.5 or newer. If you have Go already installed, type:

> git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport 
> cd teleport
> make 

If you do not have Go but you have Docker installed and running, you can build Teleport this way:

> git clone https://github.com/gravitational/teleport
> cd teleport/build.assets
> make

Installing from Binaries

You can download binaries from Github releases.

Running

Teleport supports only a handful of commands

Command	Description
start	Starts the Teleport daemon.
configure	Dumps a sample configuration file in YAML format into standard output.
version	Shows the Teleport version.
status	Shows the status of a Teleport connection. This command is only available from inside of an active SSH seession.
help	Shows help.

When experimenting you can quickly start teleport with verbose logging by typing teleport start -d.

When running teleport with a proxy role you have to make sure the assets for the Web UI can be found. The web assets are composedof index.html file and app directory. Teleport process checks the following locations for its web assets:

1. The same directory it's in
2. /usr/local/share/teleport
3. /usr/share/teleport
4. /opt/teleport

!!! tip "IMPORTANT": Teleport stores data in /var/lib/teleport. Make sure that regular users do not have access to this folder of the Auth server, otherwise anyone can gain admin access to Teleport's API.

Systemd Unit File

In production, we recommend starting teleport daemon via an init system like systemd. Here's the example of a systemd unit file:

[Unit]
Description=Teleport SSH Service
After=network.target 

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/bin/teleport --config=/etc/teleport.yaml start

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Ports

Teleport services listen on several ports. This table shows the default port numbers.

Port	Service	Description
3022	Node	SSH port. This is Teleport's equivalent of port #22 for SSH.
3023	Proxy	SSH port clients connect to. A proxy will forward this connection to port #3022 on the destination node.
3024	Auth	SSH port used by the Auth Service to serve its API to other nodes in a cluster.
3080	Proxy	HTTPS connection to authenticate tsh users and web users into the cluster. The same connection is used to serve a Web UI.

Configuration

You should use a configuration file to configure the teleport daemon. But for simpler experimentation you can use command line flags to teleport start command. To see the list of flags:

> teleport start --help

Output:

usage: teleport start [<flags>]
Flags:
  -d, --debug         Enable verbose logging to stderr
  -r, --roles         Comma-separated list of roles to start with [proxy,node,auth]
      --advertise-ip  IP to advertise to clients if running behind NAT
  -l, --listen-ip     IP address to bind to [0.0.0.0]
      --auth-server   Address of the auth server [127.0.0.1:3025]
      --token         One-time token to register with an auth server [none]
      --nodename      Name of this node, defaults to hostname
  -c, --config        Path to a configuration file [/etc/teleport.yaml]
      --labels        List of labels for this node

Configuration Flags

Lets cover some of these flags in more detail:

• --roles flag tells Teleport which services to start. It is a comma-separated list of roles. The possible values are auth, node and proxy. The default value is auth,node,proxy. These roles are explained in the Teleport Architecture document.

• --advertise-ip flag can be used when Teleport nodes are running behind NAT and their externally routable IP cannot be automatically determined.

• --nodename flag lets you assign an alternative name the node which can be used by clients to login. By default it's equal to the value returned by hostname command.

• --listen-ip shoud be used to tell teleport daemon to bind to a specific network interface. By default it listens on all.

• --labels flag allows to assign a set of labels to a node. See the explanation of labeling mechanism in "Labeling Nodes" section below.

Configuration File

Teleport uses YAML file format for configuration. A sample configuration file is shown below. By default it is stored in /etc/teleport.yaml

!!! note "IMPORTANT": When editing YAML configuration, please pay attention to how your editor handles white space. YAML requires consistent handling of tab characters.

# By default, this file should be stored in /etc/teleport.yaml

# This section of the configuration file applies to all teleport
# services.
teleport:
    # nodename allows to assign an alternative name this node can be reached by.
    # by default it's equal to hostname
    nodename: graviton

    # one-time invitation token used to join a cluster. it is not used on 
    # subsequent starts
    auth_token: xxxx-token-xxxx

    # list of auth servers in a cluster. you will have more than one auth server
    # if you configure teleport auth to run in HA configuration
    auth_servers: 
        - 10.1.0.5:3025
        - 10.1.0.6:3025

    # Teleport throttles all connections to avoid abuse. These settings allow
    # you to adjust the default limits
    connection_limits:
        max_connections: 1000
        max_users: 250

    # Logging configuration. Possible output values are 'stdout', 'stderr' and 
    # 'syslog'. Possible severity values are INFO, WARN and ERROR (default).
    log:
        output: stderr
        severity: ERROR

    # Type of storage used for keys. You need to configure this to use etcd
    # backend if you want to run Teleport in HA configuration.
    storage:
        type: bolt
        data_dir: /var/lib/teleport

# This section configures the 'auth service':
auth_service:
    enabled: yes
    listen_addr: 127.0.0.1:3025

# This section configures the 'node service':
ssh_service:
    enabled: yes
    listen_addr: 127.0.0.1:3022
    # See explanation of labels in "Labeling Nodes" section below
    labels:
        role: master
        type: postgres
    # See explanation of commands in "Labeling Nodes" section below
    commands:
    - name: hostname
      command: [/usr/bin/hostname]
      period: 1m0s
    - name: arch
      command: [/usr/bin/uname, -p]
      period: 1h0m0s

# This section configures the 'proxy servie'
proxy_service:
    enabled: yes
    listen_addr: 127.0.0.1:3023
    web_listen_addr: 127.0.0.1:3080

    # TLS certificate for the server-side HTTPS connection.
    # Configuring these properly is critical for Teleport security.
    https_key_file: /etc/teleport/teleport.key
    https_cert_file: /etc/teleport/teleport.crt

Adding and Deleting Users

A user identity in Teleport exists in the scope of a cluster. The member nodes of a cluster have multiple OS users on them. A Teleport administrator assigns allowed logins to every Teleport account, allowing it to login as one of the specified OS users.

Lets look at this table:

Teleport Username	Allowed Logins	Description
joe	joe,root	Teleport user 'joe' can login into member nodes as OS user 'joe' or 'root'
bob	bob	Teleport user 'bob' can login into member nodes only as OS user 'bob'
ross		If no login is specified, it defaults to the same name as the Teleport user.

To add a new user to Teleport you have to use tctl tool on the same node where the auth server is running, i.e. teleport was started with --roles=auth.

> tctl users add joe joe,root

Teleport generates an auto-expiring token (with a TTL of 1 hour) and prints the token URL which must be shared with a user beforeo the TTL expires.

Signup token has been created. Share this URL with the user:
https://<proxy>:3080/web/newuser/xxxxxxxxxxxx

NOTE: make sure the <proxy> host is accessible.

The user will complete registration by visiting this URL, picking a password and configuring the 2nd factor authentication. If the credentials are correct, the auth server generates and signs a new certificate and the client stores this key and will use it for subsequent logins. The key will automatically expire after 12 hours by default after which the user will need to log back in with her credentials. This TTL can be configured to a maximum of 30 hours and a minimum of 1 minute. Once authenticated, the account will become visible via tctl:

> tctl users ls

User           Allowed to Login as
----           -------------------
admin          admin,root
ross           ross
joe            joe,root 

Joe would need to use the tsh client tool to login into member node "luna" via bastion "work" as root:

> tsh --proxy=work --user=joe root@luna

To delete this user:

> tctl users del joe

Controlling access

At the moment teleport does not have a command for modifying an existing user record. The only way to update allowed logins or reset the user password is to remove the account and re-create it.

The user will have to re-initialize Google Authenticator on their phone.

Adding nodes to the cluster

Gravitational Teleport is a cluster SSH manager. It only allows SSH access to nodes who had been previously granted cluster membership.

Use tctl tool to "invite" a new node to the Teleport cluster:

tctl nodes add

Just like with adding users above, Teleport generates a single-use auto-expiring token with a TTL of 15 minutes and prints the following:

The invite token: n7305ee47a3829e118a7466ac7a0d78ad
Run this on the new node to join the cluster:
> teleport start --roles=node --token=n7305ee47a3829e118a7466ac7a0d78ad --auth-server=<Address>

tctl shows you the exact command you would need to use on the new member node to start a teleport node service on it.

When a new node comes online, it will start sending ping requests every few seconds to the auth server. This allows everyone to see which nodes are up:

> tctl nodes ls

Node Name     Node ID                                  Address            Labels
---------     -------                                  -------            ------
turing        d52527f9-b260-41d0-bb5a-e23b0cfe0f8f     10.1.0.5:3022      distro:ubuntu
dijkstra      c9s93fd9-3333-91d3-9999-c9s93fd98f43     10.1.0.6:3022      distro:debian

Labeling Nodes

In addition to specifying a custom nodename, Teleport also allows to apply arbitrary key:value pairs to each node. They are called labels. There are two kinds of labels:

1. static labels never change while the teleport process is running. You may want to label nodes with their physical location, the Linux distribution, etc.

2. label commands or "dynamic labels". Label commands allow you to execute an external command on a node at a configurable frequency. The output of that command becomes the value of such label. Examples include reporting a kernel version, load averages, time after reboot, etc.

Labels can be configured in a configuration file or via --labels flag as shown below:

> teleport start --labels uptime=[1m:"uptime -p"],kernel=[1h:"uname -r"]

Obvioiusly the kernel version is not going to change often, so this example runs uname once an hour. When this node starts and reports its labels into the cluster, users will see:

> tctl nodes ls

Node Name     Node ID          Address         Labels
---------     -------          -------         ------
turing        d52527f9-b260    10.1.0.5:3022   kernel=3.19.0-56,uptime=up 1 hour, 15 minutes

Using Teleport with OpenSSH

Teleport is a fully standards-compliant SSH proxy and it can work in environments with existing SSH implementations, such as OpenSSH. This section will cover:

• Configuring OpenSSH client ssh to login into nodes inside a Teleport cluster.
• Configuring OpenSSH server sshd to join a Teleport cluster.

Using OpenSSH Client

It is possible to use OpenSSH client ssh to connect to Teleport clusters. A Teleport proxy works by using the standard SSH proxy subsystem. This section will explain how to configure OpenSSH client to use it.

First, you need to export the public keys of cluster members. This has to be done on a node which runs Teleport auth server and probably must be done by a Teleport administrator:

> tctl authorities --type=host export > cluster_node_keys

On your client machine, you need to import these keys. It will allow your OpenSSH client to verify that host's certificates are signed by the trusted CA key:

> cat cluster_node_keys >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Configure OpenSSH client to use the Teleport proxy when connecting to nodes with matching names. Edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config:

# Tell OpenSSH client to use work.example.com as a jumphost (proxy) when logging
# to any remote node whose name matches the pattern *.work.example.com
# Beware of recurison here (when proxy name matches your pattern)
Host *.work.example.com
  ProxyCommand ssh -p 3023 %r@work.example.com -s proxy:%h:%p

Launch tsh in the SSH agent mode:

> tsh --proxy=work.example.com agent

tsh agent will print environment variables into the console. Configure your system to evaluate these variables: they tell ssh to use tsh to authenticate you against work.example.com cluster.

When everything is configured properly, you can use ssh to connect to any node behind work.example.com:

> ssh root@database.work.example.com

Integrating with OpenSSH Servers

Existing sshd servers can be added to a Teleport cluster.

1. First, you have to export the CA certificate into a file:

> tctl authorities --type=user export > cluster-ca.pub

2. Then you should copy this file to every node running sshd, for example into /etc/ssh/teleport-ca.pub

3. Update sshd configuration, usually /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

TrustedUserCAKeys /etc/ssh/user-ca.pub

Integrating with Ansible

Ansible is using OpenSSH client by default, this makes it compatible with Teleport without any extra work except configuring OpenSSH client to work with Teleport Proxy:

• config your OpenSSH to connect to Teleport proxy and user tsh agent socket
• enable scp mode in the Ansible config file (default is /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg):

scp_if_ssh = True

Authentication with OpenID Connect / OAuth2

Teleport supports OpenID Connect (also known as OIDC) to provide external authentication using OpenID providers like Google Apps.

Using OpenID Connect / OAuth2 with Google Apps

First, you must configure OpenID Connect credentials via Google's Developers Center. Please refer to this guide to configure an OIDC integration with applications like Teleport.

• Create Teleport Project that will identify your installation:

• Set up consent screen:

• Create "Web application" client ID:

• Get OAuth 2.0 client credentials:

• Add OIDC connector to teleport config:

auth_service:
  enabled: true
  domain_name: localhost
  oidc_connectors:    
    - id: google
      redirect_url: https://localhost:3080/v1/webapi/oidc/callback
      client_id: id-from-google.apps.googleusercontent.com
      client_secret: secret-key-from-google
      issuer_url: https://accounts.google.com

Now you should be able to create Teleport users whose identity is managed by Google. Assuming your company domain is example.com and it's hosted on Google Apps, lets create a new Teleport user "sasha" with an email address sasha@example.com and allow him to login as root to Teleport nodes:

tctl users add sasha root,sasha --identity google:sasha@example.com

Logging in via OpenID Connect

Web UI

Now, if everything is set up correctly, you will see "Login with Google" button on the login screen:

CLI

You have to tell tsh to authenticate via Google by providing an --auth flag:

tsh --proxy <proxy-addr> ssh --auth=google <server-addr>

... you should get a browser open a login window for you, where you will have to enter your Google credentials. Teleport will keep you logged in for the next 23 hours.

!!! tip "Other Providers?": We have already received the requests to add support for other OpenID/OAuth2 providers like Github. Teleport is an open source project and adding proivders is not hard, your contributions are welcome, just search the code for OIDC! :-)

High Availability and Clustering

Teleport uses etcd backend to achieve highly available deployments.

• Install etcd and configure peer and client TLS authentication using etcd security guide.

  **Security note:** Only Auth servers should have client certificates allowing etcd access,
  otherwise anyone can write and overwrite keys in the backend!
  

• Set up Auth server to use etcd in storage section of Auth server's config file:

teleport:
    storage:
        type: etcd
        # still need data dir for local storage purposes
        data_dir: /var/lib/teleport
        # list of etcd peers to connect to
        peers:
        - https://172.17.0.1:4001
        # required path to TLS client certificate file to connect to etcd
        tls_cert_file: /var/lib/teleport/etcd-cert.pem
        # required path to TLS private key file to connect to etc
        tls_key_file: /var/lib/teleport/etcd-key.pem
        # optioinal file with trusted CA authority
        # file to authenticate etcd nodes
        tls_ca_file: /var/lib/teleport/etcd-ca.pem

• Deploy several Auth servers connected to etcd backend
• Deploy several Proxy nodes that have auth_servers pointed to list of Auth servers to connect

NOTE As new Auth servers will be added to the cluster and old servers will be decommisioned, node's and proxies will refresh the list of available auth servers refresh the cluster info and store the updated list locally in /var/lib/teleport/authservers.json. The values from this file, if present, will take precendence over configuration file's values. You can simply remove the file so that the configuration file's values can take effect again.

Troubleshooting

To diagnose problems you can configure teleport to run with verbose logging enabled.

!!! note "IMPORTANT": It is not recommended to run Teleport in production with verbose logging as it generates substantial amount of data.

Sometimes you may want to reset teleport to a clean state. This can be accomplished by erasing everything under "data_dir" directory. Assuming the default location, rm -rf /var/lib/teleport/* will do.

Getting Help

Please open an issue on Github. Alternatively, you can reach through the contact form on our website.

For commercial support, custom features or to try our multi-cluster edition of Teleport, please reach out to us: sales@gravitational.com.