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Resource Access Requests

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With Teleport Resource Access Requests, users can request access to specific resources without needing to know anything about the roles or RBAC controls used under the hood. The Access Request API makes it easy to dynamically approve or deny these requests.

Just-in-time Access Requests are a feature of Teleport Enterprise. Teleport Community Edition users can get a preview of how Access Requests work by requesting a role via the Teleport CLI. Full Access Request functionality, including Resource Access Requests and an intuitive and searchable UI are available in Teleport Enterprise.

Prerequisites​

  • A running Teleport cluster version 18.0.0 or above. If you do not have one, read Get Started with Teleport or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl and tsh clients.

    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-18.0.0.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'
    18.0.0
  • 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  18.0.0
    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. Grant roles to users​

The built-in requester and reviewer roles have permissions to, respectively, open and review Access Requests. Grant the requester and reviewer roles to existing users, or create new users to test this feature. Make sure the requester has a valid login so that they can view and access SSH nodes.

For the rest of the guide we will assume that the requester role has been granted to a user named alice and the reviewer role has been granted to a user named bob.

  1. Assign the requester role to a user named alice:

    Assign the requester role to alice by running the appropriate commands for your authentication provider:

    1. Retrieve your local user's roles as a comma-separated list:

      ROLES=$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.roles | join(",")')

    2. Edit your local user to add the new role:

      tctl users update $(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') \  --set-roles "${ROLES?},requester"

    3. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

  2. Repeat these steps to assign the reviewer role to a user named bob.

tip

Consider defining custom roles to limit the scope of a requester or reviewer's permissions. Read the Access Request Configuration guide for available options.

Step 2/6. Search for resources​

First, log in as alice.

tsh login --proxy teleport.example.com --user alice

Notice that tsh ls returns an empty list, because alice does not have access to any resources by default.

tsh ls
Node Name Address Labels--------- ------- ------

Then try searching for all available ssh nodes.

tsh request search --kind node
Name                                 Hostname    Labels       Resource ID------------------------------------ ----------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------------b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738 iot         test=test    /teleport.example.com/node/b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f node        test=test    /teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f
To request access to these resources, run> tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/node/b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738 --resource /teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f \    --reason <request reason>

You can search for resources of kind node, kube_cluster, db, app, and windows_desktop. Teleport also supports searching and requesting access to resources within Kubernetes clusters with kind kube_resource.

Advanced filters and queries are supported. See our filtering reference for more information.

Try narrowing your search to a specific resource you want to access.

tsh request search --kind node --search iot
Name                                 Hostname    Labels       Resource ID------------------------------------ ----------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------------b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738 iot         test=test    /teleport.example.com/node/b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738
To request access to these resources, run> tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/node/b1168402-9340-421a-a344-af66a6675738 \    --reason <request reason>

Step 3/6. Request access to a resource​

Copy the command output by tsh request search in the previous step, optionally filling in a request reason.

tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f \    --reason "responding to incident 123"
Creating request...Request ID: f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddabUsername:   aliceRoles:      accessResources:  ["/teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f"]Reason:     "responding to incident 123"Reviewers:  [none] (suggested)Status:     PENDING
hint: use 'tsh login --request-id=<request-id>' to login with an approved request
Waiting for request approval...

The command will automatically wait until the request is approved.

Step 4/6. Approve the Access Request​

First, log in as bob.

tsh login --proxy teleport.example.com --user bob

Then list, review, and approve the Access Request.

tsh request ls
ID                                   User  Roles  Resources                   Created At (UTC)    Status------------------------------------ ----- ------ --------------------------- ------------------- -------f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddab alice access ["/teleport.example.... [+] 23 Jun 22 18:25 UTC PENDING
[+] Requested resources truncated, use `tsh request show <request-id>` to view the full list
hint: use 'tsh request show <request-id>' for additional details      use 'tsh login --request-id=<request-id>' to login with an approved request
tsh request show f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddab
Request ID: f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddabUsername:   aliceRoles:      accessResources:  ["/teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f"]Reason:     "responding to incident 123"Reviewers:  [none] (suggested)Status:     PENDING
hint: use 'tsh login --request-id=<request-id>' to login with an approved request
tsh request review --approve f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddab
Successfully submitted review.  Request state: APPROVED
tip

Check out our Access Request Integrations to notify the right people about new Access Requests.

Step 5/6. Access the requested resource​

alice's tsh request create command should resolve now that the request has been approved.

tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f \    --reason "responding to incident 123"
Creating request...Request ID: f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddabUsername:   aliceRoles:      accessResources:  ["/teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f"]Reason:     "responding to incident 123"Reviewers:  [none] (suggested)Status:     PENDING
hint: use 'tsh login --request-id=<request-id>' to login with an approved request
Waiting for request approval...
Approval received, getting updated certificates...
> Profile URL:        https://teleport.example.com  Logged in as:       alice  Active requests:    f406f5d8-3c2a-428f-8547-a1d091a4ddab  Cluster:            teleport.example.com  Roles:              access, requester  Logins:             alice  Kubernetes:         disabled  Allowed Resources:  ["/teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f"]  Valid until:        2022-06-23 22:46:22 -0700 PDT [valid for 11h16m0s]  Extensions:         permit-agent-forwarding, permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty

alice can now view and access the node.

tsh ls
Node Name Address   Labels--------- --------- ---------iot       [::]:3022 test=test
tsh ssh alice@iot
iot:~ alice$

Step 6/6. Resume regular access​

While logged in with a Resource Access Request, users will be blocked from access to any other resources. This is necessary because their certificate now contains an elevated role, so it is restricted to only allow access to the resources they were specifically approved for. Use the tsh request drop command to "drop" the request and resume regular access.

tsh request drop

When you drop an Access Request, Teleport issues a new user certificate. The new certificate retains the expiration of the previous certificate. Once your session expires and you reauthenticate to Teleport, you receive a user certificate with your user's originally configured time to live.

Next Steps​

Automatically request access for SSH​

Once you have configured Resource Access Requests, tsh ssh is able to automatically create a Resource Access Request for you when access is denied, allowing you to skip the tsh request search and tsh request create steps.

tsh ssh alice@iot
ERROR: access denied to alice connecting to iot on cluster teleport.example.com
You do not currently have access to alice@iot, attempting to request access.
Enter request reason: pleaseCreating request...Request ID: ab43fc70-e893-471b-872e-ae65eb24fd76Username:   aliceRoles:      accessResources:  ["/teleport.example.com/node/bbb56211-7b54-4f9e-bee9-b68ea156be5f"]Reason:     "please"Reviewers:  [none] (suggested)Status:     PENDING
hint: use 'tsh login --request-id=<request-id>' to login with an approved request
Waiting for request approval...
Approval received, reason="okay"Getting updated certificates...
iot:~ alice$

Restrict the resources a user can request access to​

In this guide, we showed you how to enable a user to search for resources to request access to. To do so, we assigned the user a Teleport role with the search_as_roles field set to the preset access role.

You can impose further restrictions on the resources a user is allowed to search by assigning search_as_roles to a more limited role. Below, we will show you which permissions you must set to restrict a user's ability to search for different resources.

To restrict access to a particular resource using a role similar to the ones below, edit one of the user's roles so the search_as_roles field includes the role you have created.

For full details on how to use Teleport roles to configure RBAC, see the Access Controls Reference.

node​

You can restrict access to searching node resources by assigning values to the node_labels field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields. The following role allows access to SSH Service instances with the env:staging label.

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: staging-access
spec:
  allow:
    node_labels:
      env: staging
    logins:
      - '{{internal.logins}}'
  options:
    # Only allows the requester to use this role for 1 hour from time of request.
    max_session_ttl: 1h

kube_cluster​

You can restrict access to searching kube_cluster resources by assigning values to the kubernetes_labels field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields.

The following role allows access to Kubernetes clusters with the env:staging label:

kind: role
metadata:
  name: kube-access
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    kubernetes_labels:
      env: staging
    kubernetes_resources:
      - kind: '*'
        namespace: '*'
        name: '*'
        api_group: '*'
  deny: {}

Kubernetes resources​

You can restrict access to Kubernetes resources by assigning values to the kubernetes_resources field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields.

The following role allows access to Kubernetes pods with the name nginx in any namespace, and all pods in the dev namespace:

kind: role
metadata:
  name: kube-access
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    kubernetes_labels:
      '*': '*'
    kubernetes_resources:
      - kind: pods
        namespace: '*'
        name: 'nginx*'
        api_group: ''
      - kind: pods
        namespace: dev
        name: '*'
        api_group: ''
    kubernetes_groups:
      - viewers
  deny: {}
Restrict Access Requests to specific Kubernetes resource kinds​

The request.kubernetes_resources field allows you to restrict what kinds of Kubernetes resources a user can request access to. Configuring this field to any value will disallow requesting access to the entire Kubernetes cluster.

If the request.kubernetes_resources field is not configured, then a user can request access to any Kubernetes resources, including the entire Kubernetes cluster.

The following role allows users to request access to Kubernetes namespaces. Requests for Kubernetes resources other than pods will not be allowed.

kind: role
metadata:
  name: requester-kube-access
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    request:
      search_as_roles:
        - kube-access
      kubernetes_resources:
        - kind: pods
          api_group: ''

The following role allows users to request access only to Kubernetes deployments and/or pods.

kind: role
metadata:
  name: requester-kube-access
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    request:
      search_as_roles:
        - kube-access
      kubernetes_resources:
        - kind: deployments
          api_group: apps
        - kind: pods
          api_group: ''

The following role allows users to request access to any specific Kubernetes resources.

kind: role
metadata:
  name: requester-kube-access
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    request:
      search_as_roles:
        - kube-access
      kubernetes_resources:
        - kind: '*'
          api_group: '*'

The request.kubernetes_resources field only restricts what kind / api_group of Kubernetes resource requests are allowed. To control Kubernetes access to these resources see Kubernetes Resources section for more details.

db​

You can restrict access to searching db resources by assigning values to the db_labels field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields.

The following role allows access to databases with the env:dev or env:staging labels:

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: developer
spec:
  allow:
    db_labels:
      env: ["dev", "staging"]

    # Database account names this role can connect as.
    db_users: ["viewer", "editor"]
    db_names: ["*"]

app​

You can restrict access to searching app resources by assigning values to the app_labels field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields.

The following role allows access to all applications except for those in env:prod:

kind: role
version: v5
metadata:
  name: dev
spec:
  allow:
    app_labels:
      "*": "*"
  deny:
    app_labels:
      env: "prod"

windows_desktop​

You can restrict access to searching windows_desktop resources by assigning values to the windows_desktop_labels field in the spec.allow or spec.deny fields.

The following role allows access to all Windows desktops with the env:dev or env:staging labels.

kind: role
version: v4
metadata:
  name: developer
spec:
  allow:
    windows_desktop_labels:
      env: ["dev", "staging"]

    windows_desktop_logins: ["{{internal.windows_logins}}"]

Request access to Kubernetes resources​

Teleport users can request access to a Kubernetes resources by running the following command, where resource-id is the ID of the resource:

tsh request create resource-id

Namespace-scoped resources​

For Kubernetes namespaced resources, the resource-id is in the following format:

/TELEPORT_CLUSTER/kube:ns:NAMESPACED_PLURAL_KIND[.API_GROUP]/KUBE_CLUSTER/NAMESPACE/RESOURCE_NAME

The API_GROUP part is only required for resources that are part of the core Kubernetes group.

tip

You can run this command to list the namespaced Kubernetes resources, including their API groups:

kubectl api-resources --namespaced=true -o name --sort-by=name

For example, to request access to a pod called nginx-1 in the dev namespace, run the following command:

tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/mycluster/dev/nginx-1

And to request access to a deployment called website in the prod namespace, run the following command:

tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:deployments.apps/mycluster/prod/website

For the NAMESPACED_PLURAL_KIND value you can use * to match all. For the API_GROUP, NAMESPACE and RESOURCE_NAME values, you can match ranges of characters by supplying a wildcard (*) or regular expression. Regular expressions must begin with ^ and end with $.

For example, to create a request to access all pods in all namespaces that match the regular expression /^nginx-[a-z0-9-]+$/, run the following command:

tsh request create --resource '/teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/mycluster/*/^nginx-[a-z0-9-]+$'

Cluster-scoped resources​

For Kubernetes cluster-scoped resources, the resource-id is in the following format:

/TELEPORT_CLUSTER/kube:cw:CLUSTER_WIDE_PLURAL_KIND[.API_GROUP]/KUBE_CLUSTER/RESOURCE_NAME

The API_GROUP part is only required for resources that are part of the core kubernetes group.

tip

You can run this command to list the cluster-wide Kubernetes resources, including their API groups:

kubectl api-resources --namespaced=false -o name --sort-by=name

For example, to request access to a namespace called prod, run the following command:

tsh request create --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:cw:namespaces/mycluster/prod

Note that this will only grant access to the namespace resource itself, not to any namespaced resources within it.

For the CLUSTER_WIDE_PLURAL_KIND value you can use * to match all. For the API_GROUP and RESOURCE_NAME value, you can match ranges of characters by supplying a wildcard (*) or regular expression. Regular expressions must begin with ^ and end with $.

For example, to create a request to access all namespaces prefixed with dev match the regular expression /^dev-[a-z0-9-]+$/, run the following command:

tsh request create --resource '/teleport.example.com/kube:cw:namespaces/mycluster/^dev-[a-z0-9-]+$'

Using cluster-scoped resource requests requires the role under search_as_roles to have the correct permissions for the cluster-scoped resource. This is an example of the required permissions to request access only to the namespace prod (does not include any resources within it):

kind: role
version: v8
spec:
  allow:
    kubernetes_resources:
    - kind: namespaces
      api_group: ''
      name: prod
      verbs:
      - '*'

Wildcard requests​

You can request access to a namespace and all resources within it, as well as to all cluster-wide resources. To do so, you can use wildcards in the resource ID.

For cluster-wide resources, the kind format as described above is kube:cw:CLUSTER_WIDE_PLURAL_KIND[.API_GROUP]. To request access to all cluster-wide resources you can request access to kube:cw:*.*. Where the first * represents the kind, and the second * represents the api group.

For namespaced resources, the kind format is kube:ns:NAMESPACED_PLURAL_KIND[.API_GROUP]. To request access to all namespaced resources within a specific namespace, you can request access to kube:ns:*.*, where the first * represents the kind, and the second * represents the api group.

For example, to request access to the prod namespace (cluster-wide) all resources within it (i.e., namespaced), you can run the following command:

tsh request create \  --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:cw:namespaces/mycluster/prod \  --resource '/teleport.example.com/kube:ns:*.*/mycluster/prod/*'

Similarly, to request access to everything within a cluster, you can use the following command:

tsh request create \  --resource '/teleport.example.com/kube:cw:*.*/mycluster/*' \  --resource '/teleport.example.com/kube:ns:*.*/mycluster/*/*'

which is equivalent to:

tsh request create \  --resource /teleport.example.com/kube_cluster/mycluster

Search for Kubernetes resources​

If a user has no access to a Kubernetes cluster, they can search the list of resources in the cluster by running the following command, replacing kube-cluster with the name of the Kubernetes cluster and namespace with the name of a Kubernetes namespace:

tsh request search \    --kind=kube_resource --kube-kind=pods --kube-api-group='' \    --kube-cluster=kube-cluster \    [--kube-namespace=namespace|--all-kube-namespaces]
Name               Namespace Labels    Resource ID-----------------  --------- --------- ----------------------------------------------------------nginx-deployment-0 default   app=nginx /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/local/default/nginx-deployment-0nginx-deployment-1 default   app=nginx /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/local/default/nginx-deployment-1
To request access to these resources, run> tsh request create \    --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/local/default/nginx-deployment-0 \    --resource /teleport.example.com/kube:ns:pods/local/default/nginx-deployment-1 \    --reason <request reason>

The list returned includes the name of the resource, the namespace it is in if applicable, its labels, and the resource ID. Resources included in the list are those that match the kubernetes_resources field in the user's search_as_roles. The user can then:

  • Request access to the resources by running the command provided by the tsh request search command.
  • Edit the command to request access to a subset of the resources.
  • Use a custom request with wildcards or regular expressions.

tsh request search --kind=kube_resource --kube-kind=<kind> --kube-api-group=<api_group> works even if the user has no permissions to interact with the desired Kubernetes cluster, but the user's search_as_roles values must allow access to the cluster. If the user is unsure of the name of the cluster, they can run the following command to search it:

tsh request search --kind=kube_cluster
Name  Hostname Labels Resource ID----- -------- ------ ----------------------------------------local                 /teleport.example.com/kube_cluster/local

Integrating with an external tool​

With Teleport's Access Request plugins, users can manage Access Requests from within your organization's existing messaging and project management solutions.

IntegrationTypeSetup Instructions
SlackMessagingSet up Slack
MattermostMessagingSet up Mattermost
Microsoft TeamsMessagingSet up Microsoft Teams
JiraProject BoardSet up Jira
PagerDutyScheduleSet up PagerDuty
EmailMessagingSet up email
DiscordMessagingSet up Discord
OpsGenieIncident ManagementSet up OpsGenie
ServiceNowWorkflowSet up ServiceNow
DatadogIncident ManagementSet up Datadog

Next Steps​