Configuring database transport encryption 

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Available in legacy Mattermost Enterprise Edition E20

Mattermost is able to encrypt the traffic between the database and the application using TLS. This guide describes the setup steps for a single, separate MySQL server.

Prerequisites 

  • Operational Mattermost server or cluster.

  • Operational MySQL server.

  • Confirmed connectivity between Mattermost and MySQL server.

  • Authentication credentials for Mattermost user on MySQL server.

Example environment 

In this scenario there is one Mattermost application server and one MySQL server, both running Ubuntu 18.04, with the following IPs:

  • transport-encryption-mattermost1: 10.10.250.146

  • transport-encryption-mysql1: 10.10.250.148

Configuring MySQL 

As a first step, connect to both servers with a sudo or root user.

Execute the following command to prepare the server for SSL connections:

sudo mysql_ssl_rsa_setup --uid=mysql

This generates self-signed certificates in /var/lib/mysql/ that the MySQL server uses to encrypt the connection. If you would like to use certificates from your company CA, please follow the MySQL documentation for configuration steps.

Note: Optionally, it can be enforced that all connections must be made via a local socket connection or TLS. To do this, open /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf and append the following line to the file:

require_secure_transport = ON

Any connection to the MySQL server must now be made with secure transport enabled.

Last but not least, restart the server and confirm it is up and running:

root@transport-encryption-mysql1:~# systemctl restart mysql
root@transport-encryption-mysql1:~# systemctl status mysql
● mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-10-18 16:41:25 UTC; 2s ago
  Process: 8380 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/mysqld --daemonize --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 8360 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/mysql/mysql-systemd-start pre (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 8382 (mysqld)
    Tasks: 27 (limit: 2361)
   CGroup: /system.slice/mysql.service
           └─8382 /usr/sbin/mysqld --daemonize --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Oct 18 16:41:25 transport-encryption-mysql1 systemd[1]: Stopped MySQL Community Server.
Oct 18 16:41:25 transport-encryption-mysql1 systemd[1]: Starting MySQL Community Server...
Oct 18 16:41:25 transport-encryption-mysql1 systemd[1]: Started MySQL Community Server.

Configuring Mattermost 

On the Mattermost server, open the file config.json and look for the DataSource value in the SqlSettings section. It should look similar to this:

"DataSource": "mmuser:sad09zusaopdhsad123@tcp(10.10.250.148:3306)/mattermost?charset=utf8mb4,utf8\u0026writeTimeout=30s",

At the end of the line, we can configure that TLS must be turned on with the tls flag which supports the following values:

  • true (Require TLS + a trusted certificate)

  • false

  • skip-verify (Require TLS + accept self-signed)

  • preferred (Try TLS, fallback to unencrypted)

In our case we need to use skip-verify since we use a self-signed certificate. The configuration setting will now look like this:

"DataSource": "mmuser:sad09zusaopdhsad123@tcp(10.10.250.148:3306)/mattermost?charset=utf8mb4,utf8\u0026writeTimeout=30s&tls=skip-verify",

If you’re running Mattermost in a cluster, be sure to update the value on each node of the cluster. If you are using configuration in the database, be sure to update the systemd unit file and enable TLS for the configuration store.

Once complete, restart the Mattermost server and ensure the system is operational:

ubuntu@transport-encryption-mattermost1:~$ sudo systemctl restart mattermost
ubuntu@transport-encryption-mattermost1:~$ systemctl status mattermost
● mattermost.service - Mattermost
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mattermost.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-10-18 16:47:08 UTC; 3s ago
  Process: 3424 ExecStartPre=/opt/mattermost/bin/pre_start.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 3443 (mattermost)
    Tasks: 20 (limit: 2361)
   CGroup: /system.slice/mattermost.service
           ├─3443 /opt/mattermost/bin/mattermost --config=mysql://mmuser:sad09zusaopdhsad123@tcp(10.10.250.148:3306)/mattermost?charset=utf8mb4,utf8&writeTimeout=30s&tls=skip-verify
           └─3459 plugins/com.mattermost.nps/server/dist/plugin-linux-amd64

Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.8637397,"caller":"scheduler/worker.go:36","msg":"Worker started","worker":"Plugins"}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.8639545,"caller":"jobs/jobs_watcher.go:38","msg":"Watcher Started"}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"info","ts":1571417228.8641603,"caller":"jobs/schedulers.go:72","msg":"Starting schedulers."}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.8645394,"caller":"app/web_hub.go:436","msg":"Hub for index 0 is starting with goroutine 3923"}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.8648505,"caller":"app/web_hub.go:436","msg":"Hub for index 1 is starting with goroutine 3924"}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.8656101,"caller":"web/static.go:31","msg":"Using client directory at /opt/mattermost/client"}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"info","ts":1571417228.8681324,"caller":"commands/server.go:105","msg":"Sending systemd READY notification."}
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 systemd[1]: Started Mattermost.
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.9003174,"caller":"jobs/schedulers.go:166","msg":"Next run time for scheduler","scheduler_name":"MigrationsSched
Oct 18 16:47:08 transport-encryption-mattermost1 mattermost[3443]: {"level":"debug","ts":1571417228.9025588,"caller":"jobs/schedulers.go:166","msg":"Next run time for scheduler","scheduler_name":"PluginsSchedule