Teleport

Teleport is an open source identity-aware infrastructure access platform that provides engineers with secure, audited access to Linux servers, Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal web applications. Built on zero-trust principles, Teleport eliminates the need for VPNs, static credentials, and complex firewall rules by using certificate-based authentication and a programmatic access proxy.

The certificate-based authentication model is central to how Teleport secures infrastructure access. Rather than using static SSH keys or passwords, Teleport issues short-lived X.509 and SSH certificates to authenticated users. These certificates expire automatically (typically within hours), eliminating the security risk of long-lived credentials that are forgotten and never rotated. When a certificate expires, the user must re-authenticate to receive a new one.

Identity integration in Teleport connects to any SAML 2.0 or OIDC identity provider including Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, and others. Users authenticate using their corporate SSO credentials and MFA, and Teleport's access policies grant access to specific infrastructure resources based on the user's identity and role. This means the same onboarding and offboarding processes that manage application access also control infrastructure access.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in Teleport is highly granular. Access policies can restrict which servers, databases, or Kubernetes namespaces each role can access, and can apply additional constraints such as requiring approval for access to production systems, restricting access to specific time windows, or requiring additional MFA factors for privileged operations.

The audit log in Teleport captures all access sessions with full playback capability. SSH sessions are recorded as text streams that can be replayed, showing every command executed and every output returned. Database sessions capture all queries. Kubernetes sessions capture all API server interactions. This comprehensive session recording provides the compliance evidence and incident investigation capability that security-conscious organizations require.

Teleport Application Access provides similar zero-trust access controls for internal web applications, enabling access to tools like Grafana, JIRA, or custom dashboards without exposing them to the public internet.

Teleport Machine ID enables automated pipelines, bots, and service accounts to authenticate to infrastructure using short-lived certificates, extending the zero-trust model to non-human access.