Passwordless

Passwordless takes advantage of WebAuthn to provide passwordless and usernameless authentication for Teleport.

Prerequisites

• A running Teleport cluster version 16.4.8 or above. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

• The tctl admin tool and tsh client tool.

  Visit Installation for instructions on downloading tctl and tsh.

• Teleport must be configured for WebAuthn. See the Second Factor: WebAuthn guide.
• A hardware device with support for WebAuthn and resident keys. As an alternative, you can use a Mac with biometrics / Touch ID or device that supports Windows Hello (Windows 10 19H1 or later).
• A web browser with WebAuthn support. To see if your browser supports WebAuthn, check the WebAuthn Compatibility page.
• A signed and notarized version of tsh is required for Touch ID. This means versions installed from Homebrew or compiled from source will not work. Download the macOS tsh installer.
• 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  16.4.8
  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.

A Teleport cluster capable of WebAuthn is automatically capable of passwordless.

Step 1/2. Register

Register your passwordless device using tsh:

tsh mfa add
Choose device type [TOTP, WEBAUTHN, TOUCHID]: WEBAUTHN
Enter device name: bio
Allow passwordless logins [YES, NO]: YES
Tap any *registered* security key
Tap your *new* security key
MFA device "bio" added.

You may pick either WEBAUTHN or TOUCHID as the device type. Make sure to answer YES to "Allow passwordless logins".

If you are using a hardware device, a passwordless registration will occupy a resident key slot. Resident keys, also called discoverable credentials, are stored in persistent memory in the authenticator (i.e., the device that is used to authenticate). In contrast, MFA keys are encrypted by the authenticator and stored in the Teleport Auth Server. Regardless of your device type, passwordless registrations may also be used for regular MFA.

Step 2/2. Authenticate

Authenticate using your passwordless credential:

tsh login --proxy=example.com --auth=passwordless
Tap your security key
> Profile URL:        https://example.com
Logged in as:       codingllama
Cluster:            example.com
Roles:              access, editor
Logins:             codingllama
Kubernetes:         enabled
Valid until:        2021-10-04 23:32:29 -0700 PDT [valid for 12h0m0s]
Extensions:         permit-agent-forwarding, permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty

tsh login --proxy=example.com --auth=passwordless
Tap your security key
> Profile URL:        https://example.com
Logged in as:       codingllama
Cluster:            example.com
Roles:              access, editor, reviewer
Logins:             codingllama
Kubernetes:         enabled
Valid until:        2021-10-04 23:32:29 -0700 PDT [valid for 12h0m0s]
Extensions:         permit-agent-forwarding, permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty

A fully passwordless cluster defaults to passwordless logins, making --auth=passwordless unnecessary. See the next section to learn how to enable passwordless by default.

Optional: Enable passwordless by default

Passwordless enthusiasts may enable passwordless by default in their clusters. Note that this configuration changes Teleport's behavior even for users without a passwordless device registered, so existing users may need to authenticate using tsh login --proxy=example.com --auth=local in order to get their first passwordless registration.

To enable passwordless by default, add connector_name: passwordless to your cluster configuration.

Edit your cluster authentication preference configuration using the following command:

tctl edit cluster_auth_preference

Ensure that the configuration includes the connector_name field as shown below:

kind: cluster_auth_preference
version: v2
metadata:
  name: cluster-auth-preference
spec:
  type: local
  second_factor: "on"
  webauthn:
    rp_id: example.com
  connector_name: passwordless # passwordless by default

Troubleshooting

"Allow passwordless logins" doesn't appear

If you don't see the "Allow passwordless logins" prompt during tsh mfa add, you may be using an older version of tsh. Download the latest tsh from our installation page.

Hardware device not usable

tsh only prompts for hardware devices with certain capabilities for passwordless registrations. If your device isn't blinking it may not be capable of passwordless logins.

Below is a non-comprehensive list of requirements:

• Device must support WebAuthn (sometimes also called FIDO2 or CTAP2).
• Device must be capable of user verification (biometrics or PIN).
• Device must have a PIN set.
• Device must have fingerprints enrolled (if biometric). This typically means both a PIN and fingerprints.

tsh relies in an embedded libfido2 to access hardware devices. If you are running on Linux, you may be missing the necessary udev rules to access your device. Try following the installation instructions for libfido2, which may provide you the necessary udev rules.

Touch ID not usable

If you are having trouble with Touch ID, make sure that you are using the latest standalone version of tsh. Download the macOS tsh installer.

Touch ID support requires Macs with a Touch ID sensor and Secure Enclave. It also requires macOS >= 10.15 (macOS Catalina).

You can run the tsh touchid diag command to verify requirements. A capable device and tsh binary should show an output similar to the one below:

tsh touchid diag
Has compile support? true
Has signature? true
Has entitlements? true
Passed LAPolicy test? true
Passed Secure Enclave test? true
Touch ID enabled? true

Windows Webauthn not usable

Windows Webauthn support for tsh requires Windows 10 19H1 or later.

You can run the tsh webauthnwin diag command to verify requirements. A capable device and tsh binary should show the following output:

tsh webauthnwin diag
WebauthWin available: true
Compile support: true
DLL API version: 4
Has platform UV: true
Register successful: true
Login successful: true

Disable passwordless

If you want to forbid passwordless access to your cluster, add passwordless: false to your configuration. Edit your cluster authentication preference using the following command:

tctl edit cluster_auth_preference

In your editor, ensure that your cluster_auth_preference includes a passwordless field similar to the following:

kind: cluster_auth_preference
version: v2
metadata:
  name: cluster-auth-preference
spec:
  type: local
  second_factor: "on"
  webauthn:
    rp_id: example.com
  passwordless: false # disable passwordless

Save and close your editor to apply your changes.

Why did my multi-factor authentication (MFA) device become a passkey?

If your MFA authenticator suddenly started being listed as a passkey, that is because it was always a passkey. Certain devices or applications (like Chrome or Safari Touch ID keys) are always created as passkeys, despite instructions from Teleport.

If an authenticator replies with the credProps extension during registration, or is used for a successful passwordless login, Teleport will automatically mark it as a passkey if that wasn't the case before.