Database Access with Oracle Exadata

Teleport can provide secure access to Oracle Exadata via the Teleport Database Service. This allows for fine-grained access control through Teleport's RBAC.

In this guide, you will:

1. Configure your Oracle Exadata database with mTLS authentication.
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 Oracle database using mutual TLS. Oracle 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.

• Teleport Enterprise (Self-Hosted)
• Teleport Enterprise (Cloud)

Prerequisites

• A running Teleport cluster. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial.

• The tctl admin tool and tsh client tool.

  Visit Installation for instructions on downloading tctl and tsh.

• Oracle Exadata server instance 19c or later.
• The sqlcl Oracle client installed and added to your system's PATH environment variable or any GUI client that supports JDBC Oracle thin client.
• 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:

  tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=email@example.com
  tctl status
  Cluster  teleport.example.com
  Version  16.4.7
  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. Configure Oracle Exadata

Update per-database configuration

Connect to the Oracle Exadata VM by logging in as the opc user and then switch to the oracle user:

ssh opc@demodb-vm
sudo su - oracle

For each database-specific Oracle home, update the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/sqlnet.ora file with the following entries:

SSL_CLIENT_AUTHENTICATION = TRUE
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (ALL)

For example, if there is a database named spark, the oracle user should have access to the automatically generated /home/oracle/spark.env file, which contains database-specific environment variables. After sourcing this file, the path $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/sqlnet.ora will point to the sqlnet.ora file for the spark database and its associated Oracle home.

Load environment variables for the 'spark' database
. spark.env

Edit the configuration file at $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/sqlnet.ora
...

Repeat these steps for each additional database or database home as required.

Configure Oracle user account

Your Oracle user accounts must be configured to require a valid client certificate.

CREATE USER alice IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY AS 'CN=alice';
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO alice;

ALTER USER alice IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY AS 'CN=alice';

Trust Teleport Database Client CA

Teleport uses mutual TLS authentication with Oracle Exadata. It must be configured with Teleport's certificate authority to be able to verify client certificates.

Export the Teleport Database Client CA on your local machine and copy it to target Oracle Exadata VM.

Export Teleport's database client certificate authority
tctl auth export --type=db-client > teleport-db-client-ca.crt
Copy the CA to the Oracle Exadata VM
scp teleport-db-client-ca.crt opc@demodb-vm:/tmp/teleport-db-client-ca.crt

As the grid user, update the grid TCPS wallet to trust the Teleport User Database CA.

Read the wallet password
mkstore -wrl /u01/app/oracle/admin/cprops/cprops_wallet -nologo -viewEntry grid_tcps_wallet_passwd
grid_tcps_wallet_passwd = <wallet password>
Update the grid TCPS wallet; provide the password when prompted
orapki wallet add -wallet "/var/opt/oracle/dbaas_acfs/grid/tcps_wallets" -trusted_cert -cert /tmp/teleport-db-client-ca.crt

Enable TLS auth for grid listener

Adjust your grid listener configuration at $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/listener.ora to enable TLS auth with the following entry:

SSL_CLIENT_AUTHENTICATION = TRUE

Restart the listener

Once finished, restart the listener.

lsnrctl stop
lsnrctl start

Step 2/6. Collect database configuration data

Export the built-in database certificate from Oracle. Teleport will use this certificate to verify the database connection.

Export the database certificate. Update the "-dn" parameter to match your actual setup.
orapki wallet export -wallet "/var/opt/oracle/dbaas_acfs/grid/tcps_wallets" -dn "CN=demodb-vm-scan.exadatadomain.oke.oraclevcn.com" -cert /tmp/oracle-server-certificate.crt

Save the /tmp/oracle-server-certificate.crt file to a temporary location. The final location depends on the Teleport installation method, which will be detailed in the next step.

Check the TCPS address of the local listener. This address will be used by Teleport for the connection. In the example below, the address is 10.20.30.40:2484.

sqlplus / as sysdba
...
SQL> SHOW PARAMETER local_listener;
. NAME           TYPE   VALUE
. -------------- ------ ------------------------------
. local_listener string (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=10.20.30.40)(PORT=1521)),
.                       (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCPS)(HOST=10.20.30.40)(PORT=2484))

Step 3/6. Configure and Start the Database Service

Create Teleport join token

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

Teleport Database Service

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

Download Teleport's PGP public key
sudo curl https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/gpg \-o /usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport APT repository for v16. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] \https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/${ID?} ${VERSION_CODENAME?} stable/v16" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install teleport-ent

sudo apt-get install teleport-ent-fips

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v16. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v16/teleport.repo")"
sudo yum install teleport-ent
Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository for v16. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use zypper to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh --repo $(rpm --eval "https://zypper.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/cloud/teleport-zypper.repo")
sudo yum install teleport-ent
Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path

sudo yum install teleport-ent-fips

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for v16. You'll need to update this
file for each major release of Teleport.
First, get the major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use the dnf config manager plugin to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v16/teleport.repo")"

Install teleport
sudo dnf install teleport-ent

Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path

sudo dnf install teleport-ent-fips

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use Zypper to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh --repo $(rpm --eval "https://zypper.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/v16/teleport-zypper.repo")

Install teleport
sudo zypper install teleport-ent

sudo zypper install teleport-ent-fips

curl https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

curl https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
<checksum> <filename>
curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
Verify that the checksums match
tar -xvf teleport-ent-v16.4.7-linux-$SYSTEM_ARCH-fips-bin.tar.gz
cd teleport-ent
sudo ./install

Download Teleport's PGP public key
sudo curl https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/gpg \-o /usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc
Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport APT repository for cloud.
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/teleport-archive-keyring.asc] \https://apt.releases.teleport.dev/${ID?} ${VERSION_CODENAME?} stable/cloud" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teleport.list > /dev/null

Provide your Teleport domain to query the latest compatible Teleport version
export TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com
export TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"

Update the repo and install Teleport and the Teleport updater
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install "teleport-ent=$TELEPORT_VERSION" teleport-ent-updater

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for cloud.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/cloud/teleport-yum.repo")"

Provide your Teleport domain to query the latest compatible Teleport version
export TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com
export TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"

Install Teleport and the Teleport updater
sudo yum install "teleport-ent-$TELEPORT_VERSION" teleport-ent-updater

Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport YUM repository for cloud.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use the dnf config manager plugin to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo "$(rpm --eval "https://yum.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/cloud/teleport-yum.repo")"

Provide your Teleport domain to query the latest compatible Teleport version
export TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com
export TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"

Install Teleport and the Teleport updater
sudo dnf install "teleport-ent-$TELEPORT_VERSION" teleport-ent-updater

Tip: Add /usr/local/bin to path used by sudo (so 'sudo tctl users add' will work as per the docs)
echo "Defaults    secure_path = /sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" > /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path

Source variables about OS version
source /etc/os-release
Add the Teleport Zypper repository for cloud.
First, get the OS major version from $VERSION_ID so this fetches the correct
package version.
VERSION_ID=$(echo $VERSION_ID | grep -Eo "^[0-9]+")
Use Zypper to add the teleport RPM repo
sudo zypper addrepo --refresh --repo $(rpm --eval "https://zypper.releases.teleport.dev/$ID/$VERSION_ID/Teleport/%{_arch}/stable/cloud/teleport-zypper.repo")

Provide your Teleport domain to query the latest compatible Teleport version
export TELEPORT_DOMAIN=example.teleport.com
export TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/automaticupgrades/channel/default/version | sed 's/v//')"

Install Teleport and the Teleport updater
sudo zypper install "teleport-ent-$TELEPORT_VERSION" teleport-ent-updater

sudo teleport db configure create \   -o file \   --token=/tmp/token \   --proxy=example.teleport.sh:443 \   --name="oracle" \   --protocol=oracle \   --uri="10.20.30.40:2484" \   --ca-cert-file="/var/lib/teleport/oracle-server-certificate.crt" \   --labels=env=dev

db_service:
  enabled: true
  databases:
  - name: oracle
    uri: "10.20.30.40:2484"
    protocol: oracle
    tls:
      mode: verify-ca
      ca_cert_file: /var/lib/teleport/oracle-server-certificate.crt

sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

sudo teleport install systemd -o /etc/systemd/system/teleport.service
sudo systemctl enable teleport
sudo systemctl start teleport

kubectl create secret generic db-ca --from-file=ca.pem=/path/to/oracle-server-certificate.crt

roles: db
proxyAddr: example.teleport.sh
enterprise: true
authToken: "JOIN_TOKEN"
databases:
  - name: oracle
    uri: "10.20.30.40:2484"
    protocol: oracle
    static_labels:
      env: dev
    tls:
      mode: verify-ca
      ca_cert_file: /etc/teleport-tls-db/db-ca/ca.pem
extraVolumes:
  - name: db-ca
    secret:
      secretName: db-ca
extraVolumeMounts:
  - name: db-ca
    mountPath: /etc/teleport-tls-db/db-ca
    readOnly: true

helm repo add teleport https://charts.releases.teleport.dev

helm repo update

helm install teleport-kube-agent teleport/teleport-kube-agent \  --create-namespace \  --namespace teleport-agent \  --version 16.4.7 \  -f values.yaml

kubectl -n teleport-agent get pods
NAME                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGEteleport-kube-agent-0   1/1     Running   0          32s

Step 4/6. (Optional) Configure Teleport to pull audit logs from Oracle Audit Trail

Teleport can pull audit logs from Oracle Audit Trail. In order to enable this feature, you will need to configure Oracle Audit Trail and create a dedicated Teleport user that will be used to fetch audit events from Oracle Audit Trail.

Create an internal Oracle teleport user that will fetch audit events from Oracle Audit Trail:

CREATE USER teleport IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY AS 'CN=teleport';
GRANT CREATE SESSION TO teleport;
GRANT SELECT ON dba_audit_trail TO teleport;
GRANT SELECT ON V_$SESSION TO teleport;

Enable the table in Oracle Audit Trail:

ALTER system SET audit_trail=db,extended scope=spfile;

Restart your Oracle instance to propagate audit trail changes.

Enable Oracle auditing for the alice user:

AUDIT ALL STATEMENTS by alice BY access;

You must enable auditing for each Teleport user that will be used to connect to Oracle. Additionally you can create a different audit policy for each user.

Configure the Teleport Database Service to pull audit logs from Oracle Audit Trail:

db_service:
  enabled: "yes"
  databases:
  - name: oracle
    protocol: "oracle"
    uri: "10.20.30.40:2484"
    oracle:
      audit_user: "teleport"
    tls:
      mode: verify-ca
      ca_cert_file: /var/lib/teleport/oracle-server-certificate.crt

Teleport doesn't clean up audit trail events from Oracle Audit Trail. Make sure to configure an Oracle Audit Trail cleanup policy to avoid running out of disk space.

Step 5/6. Create a Teleport user

tctl users add \  --roles=access \  --db-users="*" \  --db-names="*" \  alice

tctl users add \  --roles=access,requester \  --db-users="*" \  --db-names="*" \  alice

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

Step 6/6. Connect

Once the Database Service has joined the cluster, log in to see the available databases:

tsh login --proxy=example.teleport.sh --user=alice
tsh db ls
Name   Description    Allowed Users Labels  Connect
------ -------------- ------------- ------- -------
oracle         [*]                   env=dev

Connect to the "oracle" database. Pass the correct service name as the --db-name parameter.

You can check the service names by inspecting the database configuration on the Oracle Exadata VM.

> lsnrctl services | grep paasService "spark_PDB1.paas.oracle.com" has 1 instance(s).

tsh db connect --db-user alice --db-name spark_PDB1.paas.oracle.com oracle
SQLcl: Release 24.2 Production on Fri Aug 09 15:29:41 2024
Copyright (c) 1982, 2024, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 19c EE Extreme Perf Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production
Version 19.24.0.0.0
SQL> select user from dual;
USER
________
ALICE
SQL>

To log out of the database and remove credentials:

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

Next steps

• Learn how to restrict access to certain users and databases.

• View the High Availability (HA) guide.

• Take a look at the YAML configuration reference.

• See the full CLI reference.

Read the documentation about:

• Oracle Audit Trail
• sqlnet.ora and listener.ora configuration
• Oracle Exadata
• Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)