MySQL

Setting the Service mode to MYSQL enables it to operate in application-layer aware MySQL mode. This mode enables you to provide secretless access for Users to the protected upstream MySQL-based server without having to share the upstream's password. This mode also provides you with clear application-layer aware visibility where your MySQL sessions and queries are logged and audited in real-time.

note

Read more about access to MYSQL from a User perspective here. You can also read more detailed guides here for generic databases behind NAT and here for SaaS PlanetScale MySQL-based databases.

Secretless Access

Secretless access enables you to provide secretless access for authorized Users to MYSQL-based Service by automatically injecting passwords to authenticate to the upstream MySQL database, and force the User to connect to the upstream as a specific user, possibly with a certain role corresponding to specific permissions, to a specific database.

First, you need to create a Secret to store the password of your upstream SSH server (read more here) as follows:

octeliumctl create secret mariadb-password
# OR via a --value flag
octeliumctl create secret --value <PASSWORD> mariadb-password
# OR via a --file flag
octeliumctl create secret --file /PATH/TO/PASSWORD mariadb-password

Now, you define your Service as follows:

kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
  mode: MYSQL
  port: 3306
  config:
    upstream:
      url: mysql://address-to-db
    mysql:
      user: root
      database: mysql
      auth:
        password:
          fromSecret: mariadb-password

Now, the above configuration forces the User to authenticate as root with the password value set in the Secret mariadb-password and connect to the database mysql regardless of the information supplied by the downstream.

note

For now, authorized Users have to use an empty password value to access the Service.

note

For internal/private MySQL upstreams behind NAT, you need to remotely serve them via a connected octelium client or container as discussed here.

TLS

If the upstream database is serving over TLS, you have to use the isTLS boolean field as follows:

kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
  mode: MYSQL
  port: 3306
  config:
    upstream:
      url: mysql://address-to-db
    mysql:
      user: root
      database: mysql
      auth:
        password:
          fromSecret: mariadb-password
      isTLS: true

Access Control

By default, the Service enforces authorization only at the beginning of the connection. You can, however, enforce authorization for every MySQL command (e.g. queries) by setting the authorization.mode field to ALL. In such case, MySQL-specific information of each command is stored in ctx.request.mysql which can be used by your Policies. Here is a detailed example of an inline Policy that denies DROP and TRUNCATE statements:

kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
  mode: MYSQL
  port: 3306
  config:
    upstream:
      url: mysql://address-to-db
    mysql:
      user: root
      database: mysql
      auth:
        password:
          fromSecret: mariadb-password
      authorization:
        mode: ALL
  authorization:
    inlinePolicies:
      - spec:
          rules:
            - effect: ALLOW
              condition:
                matchAny: true
            - effect: DENY
              condition:
                match: 'ctx.request.mysql.query.query.matches("(?i)^\\s*(drop|truncate)\\s")'

The following MySQL commands are authorized:

Query commands whose SQL statement is stored in ctx.request.mysql.query.query.
Prepare statement commands whose SQL statement is stored in ctx.request.mysql.prepareStatement.query.
Commands that change the default database (i.e. COM_INIT_DB) whose database name is stored in ctx.request.mysql.initDB.database.

A denied command is not proxied to the upstream and the downstream receives an access denied MySQL error instead while the connection itself remains open.

Dynamic Configuration

You can use dynamic configuration (read more about dynamic configuration here) to, for example, route to different upstreams or different database users with different privileges and roles (e.g. more privileged Users can automatically delete tables or databases while other Users cannot do so) based on identity and/or context. Here is an example:

kind: Service
metadata:
  name: example-svc
spec:
  mode: MYSQL
  dynamicConfig:
    configs:
    - name: prod
      upstream:
        url: mysql://address
      mysql:
        user: prod
        database: prod-db
        auth:
          password:
            fromSecret: prod-password
    - name: dev
      upstream:
        url: mysql://address
      mysql:
        user: dev
        database: dev-db
        auth:
          password:
            fromSecret: dev-password
    rules:
    - condition:
        match: '"prod" in ctx.user.spec.groups'
      configName: prod
    - condition:
        matchAny: true
      configName: dev

Visibility

The Service emits access logs in real time to the audit collector. Each log provides MySQL application-layer aware information about the request such as the command type, the query details, etc.... Here is an example:

{
  "apiVersion": "core/v1",
  "kind": "Log",
  "metadata": {
    // Omitted for the sake of brevity of the example
  },
  "entry": {
    "service": {
      "info": {
        "common": {
          "status": "ALLOWED"
          // Omitted for the sake of brevity of the example
        },
        "mysql": {
          "query": {
            "query": "CREATE DATABASE db01;"
          },
          "type": "QUERY"
        }
      }
      // Omitted for the sake of brevity of the example
    }
  }
}

As you can see in the above example, the type of this MYSQL access Log is a QUERY. The MYSQL mode currently has 14 Log types, including SESSION_START, SESSION_END, QUERY, INIT_DB, CREATE_DB, DROP_DB, PREPARE_STATEMENT and EXECUTE_STATEMENT, and some of these types include different detailed information according to their type. You can read more in the API reference.

You can also disable recording the statement text of the query and prepare statement commands in the access logs via the visibility.disableQuery field. The access logs themselves are still recorded without the statement text. This is recommended for databases whose statements routinely embed credentials or other sensitive values. Here is an example:

kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mariadb
spec:
  mode: MYSQL
  port: 3306
  config:
    upstream:
      url: mysql://address-to-db
    mysql:
      user: root
      database: mysql
      auth:
        password:
          fromSecret: mariadb-password
      visibility:
        disableQuery: true