# Database Access with Amazon DocumentDB Teleport can provide secure access to Amazon DocumentDB via the [Teleport Database Service](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access.md). This allows for fine-grained access control through [Teleport's RBAC](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/rbac.md). In this guide, you will: 1. Configure your Amazon DocumentDB 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 uses IAM authentication to communicate with Amazon DocumentDB. When a user connects to the database via Teleport, the Teleport Database Service obtains AWS credentials and authenticates to AWS as an IAM principal with permissions to access the database. **Self-Hosted** ![Teleport Architecture DocumentDB Access Self-Hosted](/docs/assets/images/docdb_selfhosted-83d107cbc28d7e7341d15a57eb80e185.svg) **Cloud-Hosted** ![Teleport Architecture DocumentDB Cloud](/docs/assets/images/docdb_cloud-49d2e97b4bef83db89cb20e99e0e597f.svg) This guide shows how to register a single Amazon DocumentDB cluster with your Teleport cluster. For a more scalable approach, learn how to set up [Database Auto-Discovery](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/auto-discovery/databases.md) to automatically enroll all AWS databases in your infrastructure. ## Prerequisites - A running Teleport cluster. If you want to get started with Teleport, [sign up](https://goteleport.com/signup) for a free trial or [set up a demo environment](https://goteleport.com/docs/get-started/deploy-community.md). - The `tctl` and `tsh` clients. Installing `tctl` and `tsh` clients 1. Determine the version of your Teleport cluster. 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/find` and use a JSON query tool to obtain your cluster version. Replace teleport.example.com:443 with the web address of your Teleport Proxy Service: ``` $ TELEPORT_DOMAIN=teleport.example.com:443 $ TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl -s https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/find | jq -r '.server_version')" ``` 2. Follow the instructions for your platform to install `tctl` and `tsh` clients: **Mac** Download the signed macOS .pkg installer for Teleport, which includes the `tctl` and `tsh` clients: ``` $ curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-${TELEPORT_VERSION?}.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. --- **Windows - Powershell** ``` $ curl.exe -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-windows-amd64-bin.zip Unzip the archive and move the `tctl` and `tsh` clients to your %PATH% NOTE: Do not place the `tctl` and `tsh` clients in the System32 directory, as this can cause issues when using WinSCP. Use %SystemRoot% (C:\Windows) or %USERPROFILE% (C:\Users\) instead. ``` **Linux** All of the Teleport binaries in Linux installations include the `tctl` and `tsh` clients. For more options (including RPM/DEB packages and downloads for i386/ARM/ARM64) see our [installation page](https://goteleport.com/docs/installation.md). ``` $ curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz $ tar -xzf teleport-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-amd64-bin.tar.gz $ cd teleport $ sudo ./install Teleport binaries have been copied to /usr/local/bin ``` * AWS account with a DocumentDB cluster. --- IAM AUTHENTICATION AND TLS Teleport uses IAM authentication to connect users to DocumentDB, which is only supported for DocumentDB 5.0 or higher. In addition, the DocumentDB cluster must have Transport Layer Security (TLS) enabled. TLS is enabled by default when using the default parameter group. --- * Command-line client `mongosh` or `mongo` 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. * 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 18.7.3 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](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/rbac.md) --- **Teleport Community Edition** Create a local Teleport user with the built-in `access` role: ``` $ tctl users add \ --roles=access \ --db-users="*" \ --db-names="*" \ alice ``` **Teleport Enterprise/Enterprise Cloud** 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. | --- 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](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/rbac.md) 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 ``` 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: - [Configure Teleport to Automatically Enroll EC2 instances](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/auto-discovery/servers/ec2-discovery.md) - [Joining Teleport Services via AWS IAM Role](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/agents/aws-iam.md) - [Joining Teleport Services via AWS EC2 Identity Document](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/agents/aws-ec2.md) To install a Teleport Agent on your Linux server: The recommended installation method is the cluster install script. It will select the correct 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 the node that is running the Database Service, create a configuration file. Use your DocumentDB cluster endpoint and port as the URI, replacing my-docdb.cluster-abcdefghijklm.us-east-1.docdb.amazonaws.com:27017: ``` $ sudo teleport db configure create \ -o file \ --name="my-docdb" \ --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 \ --protocol=mongodb \ --token=/tmp/token \ --uri="my-docdb.cluster-abcdefghijklm.us-east-1.docdb.amazonaws.com:27017" ``` The command will generate a Database Service configuration to proxy your AWS DocumentDB cluster and save the configuration to `/etc/teleport.yaml`. ## Step 3/6. Create an IAM role for the Database Service First, visit the [IAM > Policies page](https://console.aws.amazon.com/iamv2/home#/policies) of the AWS Console, then press "Create policy". Use the **JSON** option for Policy editor and paste in the following policy: ``` { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "rds:DescribeDBClusters" ], "Resource": "*" }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "sts:AssumeRole" ], "Resource": "*", "Condition": { "StringEquals": {"iam:ResourceTag/TeleportDatabaseService": "Allowed"} } } ] } ``` This policy allows Teleport Database Service to retrieve DocumentDB cluster metadata and assume IAM roles to authenticate as DocumentDB users. Note that the `sts:AssumeRole` has a resource tag condition to limit the IAM roles the Teleport Database Service can assume. Click **Next** and give the policy a name. In this guide, we will use the example name `TeleportDatabaseAccessDocumentDB`. Now visit the [IAM > Roles page](https://console.aws.amazon.com/iamv2/home#/roles) of the AWS Console, then press "Create Role". Under **Trusted entity type** select "AWS service". Under **Use case** select "EC2" or the intended use case, then click **Next**. ![Create Role Step 1](/docs/assets/images/dynamodb-create-ec2-role-c5e2bc5e7e018b08556152f637d48233.png) On the "Add Permissions" page, find and select the `TeleportDatabaseAccessDocumentDB` policy that is created in the previous step. ![Create Role Step 2](/docs/assets/images/docdb-create-role-select-policy-d76ed9fc9043a1a5f1c006d7d943931c.png) Click "Next" and give the role a name. In this guide, we will use the example name `TeleportDatabaseService` for this role. Once you have chosen a name, click **Create Role** to complete the process. ## 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. **Package Manager** On the host where you will run the Database Service, enable and start Teleport: ``` $ sudo systemctl enable teleport $ sudo systemctl start teleport ``` **TAR Archive** On the host where you will run the 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 Database Service with `systemctl status teleport` and view its logs with `journalctl -fu teleport`. The Database Service will proxy the Amazon DocumentDB cluster with the URI you specified earlier. Keep in mind that AWS IAM changes may not propagate immediately and can take a few minutes to come into effect. ## Step 5/6. Create an IAM role for a DocumentDB user In this step, we will create an IAM role that the Teleport Database Service can assume to authenticate to DocumentDB on behalf of a Teleport user. ### Create an IAM role Navigate back to the Roles page on the AWS Web Console and create a new role. Select the "AWS account" option, which creates a default trust policy to allow other entities in this account to assume this role: ![Create Role Step 1](/docs/assets/images/dynamodb-create-role-1-de95f8631ab398d51ab1f49ebf5fb258.png) Skip the "Add Permissions" page by clicking "Next", and give the role a name. In this guide, we will use the example "teleport-docdb-user" for this role. Now click **Add new tag** at Step 3, use `TeleportDatabaseService` for the key and `Allowed` for the value. Then click **Create Role** to complete the process. ![Create Role Step 3](/docs/assets/images/aws-create-role-add-tags-74dfa35d1bc8c4e317e3a76597a6b2e9.png) ### Create a DocumentDB user Log in to your DocumentDB cluster with your master username and password from a machine that has network access to the DocumentDB cluster. Create a DocumentDB user with the IAM role ARN as username and specify `MONGODB-AWS` in the mechanisms for authentication. Replace arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/teleport-docdb-user with the ARN of your DocumentDB user: ``` use $external; db.createUser( { user: "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/teleport-docdb-user", mechanisms: ["MONGODB-AWS"], roles: [ { role: "root", db: "admin" }, ] } ); ``` This example creates a DocumentDB IAM user with root privileges. You can adjust the privileges as required. --- AVOID PASSWORD AUTHENTICATION This step is a one-time setup that must use password authentication. However, after creating the first IAM user, you can skip password authentication by accessing DocumentDB through Teleport and creating more DocumentDB IAM users using the first IAM user. --- ## Step 6/6 Connect Once the Database Service has started and joined the cluster, log in to see the registered databases: ``` $ tsh login --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 --user=alice $ tsh db ls Name Description Labels -------- ----------- -------- my-docdb env=dev ``` Retrieve credentials for the database and connect to it as the `teleport-docdb-user` user: ``` $ tsh db connect --db-user=teleport-docdb-user --db-name=test my-docdb ``` Log out of the database and remove credentials: ``` $ tsh db logout my-docdb ``` ## 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](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/UsingWithRDS.SSL-certificate-rotation.html). ### 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 | grep HttpPutResponseHopLimit "HttpPutResponseHopLimit": 1, ``` See [IMDSv2 support for EKS](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/08/amazon-eks-supports-ec2-instance-metadata-service-v2/) and [EKS best practices](https://aws.github.io/aws-eks-best-practices/security/docs/iam/#when-your-application-needs-access-to-imds-use-imdsv2-and-increase-the-hop-limit-on-ec2-instances-to-2) for more details. ### Timeout errors The Teleport Database Service requires connectivity to your database endpoints. Check that firewall rules (e.g., AWS security groups) allow connectivity between the Teleport Database Service and the database endpoint. - Inbound firewall rules for the database must allow connections from the Teleport Database Service. - Outbound firewall rules for the Teleport Database Service must allow connections to the database endpoint. --- TIP On the same host as the Teleport Database Service, try running `nc` to check if it can reach the database port. - Database host: database-host - Database port: database-port ``` $ nc -zv database-host database-port Connection to postgres-instance-1.sadas.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com (172.31.24.172) 5432 port [tcp/postgresql] succeeded! ``` --- Debugging connection timeout errors in AWS For deployments in AWS, it may be helpful to use [AWS Reachability Analyzer](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/reachability/what-is-reachability-analyzer.html) to analyze the network path between the Teleport Database Service and the database. 1. Identify the Elastic Network Interface (ENI) associated with the Teleport Database Service host. This can be found in the [EC2 console](https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/home?NIC). 2. Identify the private IP address of the database. 3. Create and analyze a network path: - Set the path source to the ENI associated with the Teleport Database Service host. - Set the path destination to the database IP. 4. Check the analysis results to identify reachability issues. If your database is registered dynamically or via auto-discovery, repeat the above connectivity test for *every*\* Teleport Database Service instance that proxies this database. To list all Teleport Database Service instances associated with a given database, run the `tctl get db_server/` command. For example: ``` $ tctl get db_server/postgres-instance-1 --format json | jq '.[] | {hostname: .spec.hostname, host_id: .spec.host_id, version: .spec.version, target_health: .status.target_health}' { "hostname": "ip-10-0-0-111.ca-central-1.compute.internal", "host_id": "e5e670ac-a7b8-44ef-b373-6296d87f50e8", "version": "18.3.0", "target_health": { "status": "unhealthy", ... } } { "hostname": "ip-10-0-0-222.ca-central-1.compute.internal", ... } ``` If any of the Database Service instances listed here **should not** proxy the database, (for example, a Database Service instance in a different VPC or AWS region without connectivity), locate and update their configurations so they only receive or discover databases they can reach. In most cases, you can achieve this by refining your tag filters, such as adding the `vpc-id` label. ### 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. 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 ``` 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. **Role as principal** 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" } ] } ``` **Account as principal** Assign aws-account-id to your AWS account ID: ``` { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::aws-account-id:root" }, "Action": "sts:AssumeRole" } ] } ``` **Cross-account with external-id** Assign external-aws-account-id to an external AWS account ID: ``` { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::external-aws-account-id:role/teleport-db-service-role" }, "Action": "sts:AssumeRole", "Condition": { "StringEquals": { "sts:ExternalId": "example-external-id" } } } ] } ``` **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](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/access_policies_boundaries.html) 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](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-use-trust-policies-with-iam-roles/). ### Unable to authenticate using mechanism "MONGODB-AWS" error You may encounter the following error when IAM authentication fails: ``` $ tsh db connect --db-user=teleport-docdb-user --db-name=test my-docdb ... MongoServerSelectionError: error connecting to the database connection() error occurred during connection handshake: auth error: sasl conversation error: unable to authenticate using mechanism "MONGODB-AWS": Authentication failed. ERROR: exit status 1 ``` Make sure the IAM role exists as a DocumentDB user in the "$external" database of the target DocumentDB cluster and the DocumentDB user is configured with `MONGODB-AWS` mechanisms for authentication. See [Authentication using IAM identity](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/documentdb/latest/developerguide/iam-identity-auth.html) for more details. ## Next steps - Learn how to [restrict access](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/rbac.md) to certain users and databases. * View the [High Availability (HA)](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/agents/high-availability.md) guide. - Take a look at the YAML configuration [reference](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/reference/configuration.md). * See the full CLI [reference](https://goteleport.com/docs/enroll-resources/database-access/reference/cli.md). - Learn more about [Authentication using IAM identity for DocumentDB](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/documentdb/latest/developerguide/iam-identity-auth.html) for more details.