Skip to main content
Version: 18.x

Installing Teleport on Linux

Report an issue with this page

Teleport maintains DEB and RPM package repositories for different operating systems, platforms, and Teleport versions. A server that installs Teleport from a DEB or RPM package must have systemd installed. You can also download TAR archives containing Teleport binaries.

Note that Teleport agents should always use the one-line installation script or teleport-update binary to install Teleport. Otherwise, they will fall out-of-date, become incompatible with the cluster, and eventually disconnect.

Operating system support​

Operating Systemteleport Daemontctl Admin Tooltsh and Teleport Connect User Clients [1]Web UI (via the browser)tbot Daemon
Linux 3.2+ (RHEL/CentOS 7+, Rocky Linux 8+, Amazon Linux 2+, Amazon Linux 2023+, Ubuntu 16.04+, Debian 9+, SLES 12 SP 5+, and SLES 15 SP 5+) [2]yesyesyes [3]yesyes

[1] tsh is a Command Line Client (CLI) and Teleport Connect is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) desktop client. See Using Teleport Connect for usage and installation.

[2] Enhanced Session Recording requires Linux kernel v5.8+.

[3] Teleport Connect on Linux requires glibc 2.28+ present in Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 10+, Fedora 37+.

For best results, Teleport clients (tsh, tctl, tbot) should be the same major version as the cluster they are connecting to. Teleport servers are compatible with clients that are on the same major version or one major version older. Teleport servers do not support clients that are on a newer major version. See our Upgrading guide for more information.

Installing Teleport as a cluster​

If you are starting out with Teleport, we recommend beginning with a Teleport Cloud account. From there, the only Teleport components you need to deploy yourself are Teleport Agents, which is discussed in the next section.

If you are self-hosting a Teleport cluster, please take a look at our Linux Demo for the Teleport Community Edition or our Self-Hosting Teleport section in the docs for more information on Teleport Enterprise Self-Hosted.

Teleport Enterprise Cloud is provisioned and managed for you so there are no install steps. The only Teleport components you need to deploy yourself are Teleport Agents.

Cluster configuration​

The above methods for installing Teleport on a Linux server do not generate a Teleport configuration file for you. For this, we have a teleport configure CLI command or you can create one manually.

See the following guides for help setting up a configuration file:

  • Teleport Configuration Reference: This will provide you with the command you need to generate and populate the /etc/config.yaml file as well as further configuration options for your cluster.
  • Self-Hosted Demo Cluster: If you are deploying the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service, read this guide for an example of a configuration file.

Installing Teleport as an agent​

The easiest way to install Teleport as an agent is through the WebUI at /web/discover, where you can select a resource to enroll with your Teleport cluster and retrieve an "all-in-one" installation script to run on Linux hosts.

One-line installation script​

Outside of the WebUI, you can run our one-line cluster install script on your Linux server where you are deploying Teleport as an agent. This script will detect and use the best version, edition, and installation mode for your cluster. Note that this is script is for Teleport versions 17.3 and above. If you are installing a version before this edition or this script does not work on your server, see below for other options.

  1. Assign example.teleport.sh:443 to your Teleport cluster hostname and Web UI port. This should contain you cluster hostname and port, but not the scheme (https://).
  2. Run your cluster's install script: 
    curl "https://example.teleport.sh:443/scripts/install.sh" | sudo bash

You can also use the example Terraform module for deploying agents in Deploy Agents with Terraform.

Agent configuration​

Outside of deploying Teleport as an agent in the WebUI, the methods for installing Teleport on a Linux server do not generate a Teleport configuration file for you. You will need to generate one prior to starting the Teleport service.

See the following guides for examples of setting up a configuration file:

  • Enroll Resources: Guides to setting up Teleport Agents in order to enroll infrastructure resources in your cluster. These guides include examples of setting up Teleport configuration files.
  • Self-Hosted Demo Cluster: If you are deploying the Teleport Auth Service and Proxy Service, read this guide for an example of a configuration file.
  • Teleport Configuration Reference: A guide to all configuration fields.

Other Install Methods​

Package repositories​

The one-line-installation-script automatically detects a package manager on the local system and uses it to install Teleport from an upstream repository.

If your system does not support the one-line installation script, read the instructions in this section for instructions on working with Teleport package repositories.

Note that Teleport agents should always use the one-line installation script or teleport-update binary to install Teleport. Otherwise, they will fall out-of-date, become incompatible with the cluster, and eventually disconnect.

  1. Assign the following environment variables in the terminal where you will run Teleport installation commands, indicating the package and version to install:

    export TELEPORT_PKG=teleport-ent
    export TELEPORT_VERSION=v18
    export TELEPORT_CHANNEL=stable/${TELEPORT_VERSION?}

    For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations, install the teleport-ent-fips package instead:

    export TELEPORT_PKG=teleport-ent-fips

  2. Teleport maintains DEB and RPM package repositories for different Linux distributions based on variables defined in /etc/os-release on Linux systems. Source this file to define the variables:

    source /etc/os-release

  3. Make sure the value of the ID environment variable is supported.

    The Teleport DEB and RPM repositories don't expose packages for all distribution variants. When installing Teleport using RPM repositories, you may need to replace the ID variable set in /etc/os-release with ID_LIKE to install packages of the closest supported distribution.

    Currently supported distributions (and ID values) are:

    DistributionVersionID value in /etc/os-release
    Amazon Linux2 and 2023amzn
    CentOS>= 7centos
    Debian>= 9debian
    RHEL>= 7rhel
    Rocky Linux>= 8rocky
    SLES>= 12 SP5, >= 15 SP5sles
    Ubuntu>= 16.04ubuntu

    Note that Enhanced Session Recording requires Linux kernel version 5.8+. This means that it requires more recent OS versions than other Teleport features:

    DistributionVersion
    Amazon Linux2 (post 11/2021), 2023
    CentOS/RHEL9+
    Rocky Linux8+
    Debian11, or 10 with backports
    Ubuntu20.042+

    If the value of ID is not in the list above, look up the space-separated values of the ID_LIKE variable you sourced from /etc/os-release and see if one of them appears in the list.

  4. Follow the instructions for your package manager:

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

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install ${TELEPORT_PKG?}

Downloading packages and TAR archives​

Teleport maintains TAR archives as well as DEB and RPM packages for Linux-compatible binaries at https://cdn.teleport.dev. This section explains how to install Teleport by manually downloading a release.

Note that Teleport agents should always use the one-line installation script or teleport-update binary to install Teleport. Otherwise, they will fall out-of-date, become incompatible with the cluster, and eventually disconnect.

  1. In your terminal, assign environment variables that you will use to download your intended archive.

    For Teleport Community Edition, the Teleport package is called teleport:

    TELEPORT_PKG=teleport

    For self-hosted Teleport Enterprise deployments, the package is called teleport-ent:

    TELEPORT_PKG=teleport-ent

  2. Specify your system Teleport version and system architecture by assigning an environment variable:

    TELEPORT_VERSION=18.1.6
    SYSTEM_ARCH=""

    The following architecture values are available:

    • amd64 (x86_64 if downloading an RPM package)
    • arm64
    • arm
    • 386 (i386 if downloading a DEB or RPM package)

  3. Run the following commands to download a Teleport package or archive, unpack it, and install binaries:

    curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/${TELEPORT_PKG?}-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-bin.tar.gz.sha256
    curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/${TELEPORT_PKG?}-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-bin.tar.gz
    shasum --check --algorithm 256 < ${TELEPORT_PKG?}-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-bin.tar.gz.sha256
    ${TELEPORT_PKG?}-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-bin.tar.gz: OK
    tar -xvf ${TELEPORT_PKG?}-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-bin.tar.gz
    cd ${TELEPORT_PKG?}
    sudo ./teleport-update enable --proxy example.teleport.sh # or sudo ./install for static installation

    For FedRAMP/FIPS-compliant installations of Teleport Enterprise, package URLs are slightly different:

    curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
    curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-ent-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-fips-bin.tar.gz
    shasum --check --algorithm 256 < teleport-ent-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-fips-bin.tar.gz.sha256
    teleport-ent-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-fips-bin.tar.gz: OK
    tar -xvf teleport-ent-v${TELEPORT_VERSION?}-linux-${SYSTEM_ARCH?}-fips-bin.tar.gz
    cd teleport-ent
    sudo ./teleport-update enable --proxy example.teleport.sh # or sudo ./install for static installation

From your browser​

For Teleport Community Edition, check the Downloads page for the most up-to-date information.

On cloud-hosted Teleport Enterprise you can visit a download page in the Web UI. Select the user name in the upper right and select Downloads from the menu.

Customers who self-host Teleport Enterprise can access Enterprise downloads and their license file from their dedicated account dashboard.