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TelepresenceLaptop-side configuration
Laptop-side configuration
There are a number of configuration values that can be tweaked to change how Telepresence behaves.
These can be set in two ways: globally, by a platform engineer with powers to deploy the Telepresence Traffic Manager, or locally by any user.
One important exception is the location of the traffic manager itself, which, if it's different from the default of ambassador, must be set locally per-cluster to be able to connect.
Global Configuration
Global configuration is set at the Traffic Manager level and applies to any user connecting to that Traffic Manager.
To set it, simply pass in a client dictionary to the telepresence helm install command, with any config values you wish to set.
The client config supports values for cloud, cluster, dns, grpc, images, logLevels, routing,
systray, telepresenceAPI, and timeouts.
Here is an example configuration to show you the conventions of how Telepresence is configured:
note: This config shouldn't be used verbatim, since the registry privateRepo used doesn't exist
Cloud
Values for client.cloud are listed below and their type varies, so please see the chart for the expected type for each config value.
These fields control how the client interacts with the Cloud service.
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
skipLogin | Print an error instead of prompting the user to login, in case a login is necessary. | boolean | false |
systemaHost | The host used to communicate with Ambassador Cloud | string | app.getambassador.io |
systemaPort | The port used with systemaHost to communicate with Ambassador Cloud | string | 443 |
Cluster
Values for client.cluster controls aspects on how client's connection to the traffic-manager.
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
defaultManagerNamespace | The default namespace where the Traffic Manager will be installed. | string | ambassador |
mappedNamespaces | Namespaces that will be mapped by default. | sequence of strings | [] |
connectFromRootDaeamon | Make connections to the cluster directly from the root daemon. | boolean | true |
agentPortForward | Let telepresence-client use port-forwards directly to agents | boolean | true |
virtualIPSubnet | The CIDR to use when generating virtual IPs | string | platform dependent |
DNS
The client.dns configuration offers options for configuring the DNS resolution behavior in a client application or system. Here is a summary of the available fields:
The fields for client.dns are: localIP, excludeSuffixes, includeSuffixes, and lookupTimeout.
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
localIP | The address of the local DNS server. This entry is only used on Linux systems that are not configured to use systemd-resolved. | IP address string | first nameserver mentioned in /etc/resolv.conf |
excludeSuffixes | Suffixes for which the DNS resolver will always fail (or fallback in case of the overriding resolver). Can be globally configured in the Helm chart. | sequence of strings | [".arpa", ".com", ".io", ".net", ".org", ".ru"] |
includeSuffixes | Suffixes for which the DNS resolver will always attempt to do a lookup. Includes have higher priority than excludes. Can be globally configured in the Helm chart. | sequence of strings | [] |
excludes | Names to be excluded by the DNS resolver | [] | |
mappings | Names to be resolved to other names (CNAME records) or to explicit IP addresses | [] | |
lookupTimeout | Maximum time to wait for a cluster side host lookup. | duration string | 4 seconds |
Here is an example values.yaml:
Mappings
Allows you to map hostnames to aliases or to IP addresses. This is useful when you want to use an alternative name for a service in the cluster, or when you want the DNS resolver to map a name to an IP address of your choice.
In the given cluster, the service named postgres is located within a separate namespace titled big-data, and it's referred to as psql :
Exclude
Lists service names to be excluded from the Telepresence DNS server. This is useful when you want your application to interact with a local service instead of a cluster service. In this example, "redis" will not be resolved by the cluster, but locally.
Grpc
The maxReceiveSize determines how large a message that the workstation receives via gRPC can be. The default is 4Mi (determined by gRPC). All traffic to and from the cluster is tunneled via gRPC.
The size is measured in bytes. You can express it as a plain integer or as a fixed-point number using E, G, M, or K. You can also use the power-of-two equivalents: Gi, Mi, Ki. For example, the following represent roughly the same value:
Images
Values for client.images are strings. These values affect the objects that are deployed in the cluster,
so it's important to ensure users have the same configuration.
These are the valid fields for the client.images key:
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
registry | Docker registry to be used for installing the Traffic Manager and default Traffic Agent. | Docker registry name string | docker.io/datawire |
agentImage | $registry/$imageName:$imageTag to use when installing the Traffic Agent. | qualified Docker image name string | (unset) |
clientImage | $registry/$imageName:$imageTag to use locally when connecting with --docker. | qualified Docker image name string | $registry/ambassador-telepresence |
Intercept
The intercept controls applies to how Telepresence will intercept the communications to the intercepted service.
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
appProtocolStrategy | Controls how Telepresence selects the application protocol to use when intercepting a service that has no service.ports.appProtocol defined. | appProtocolStrategy | http2Probe |
defaultPort | controls which port is selected when no --port flag is given to the telepresence intercept command. | int | 8080 |
useFtp | Use fuseftp instead of sshfs when mounting remote file systems | boolean | false |
The appProtocolStrategy is only relevant when using personal intercepts. Valid values are:
| Value | Resulting action |
|---|---|
http2Probe | The Telepresence Traffic Agent will probe the intercepted container to check whether it supports http2 |
portName | Telepresence will make an educated guess about the protocol based on the name of the service port |
http | Telepresence will use http |
http2 | Telepresence will use http2 |
When portName is used, Telepresence will determine the protocol by the name of the port: <protocol>[-suffix]. The following protocols are recognized:
| Protocol | Meaning |
|---|---|
http | Plaintext HTTP/1.1 traffic |
http2 | Plaintext HTTP/2 traffic |
https | TLS Encrypted HTTP (1.1 or 2) traffic |
grpc | Same as http2 |
Log Levels
Values for the client.logLevels fields are one of the following strings,
case-insensitive:
tracedebuginfowarningorwarnerror
For whichever log-level you select, you will get logs labeled with that level and of higher severity.
(e.g. if you use info, you will also get logs labeled error. You will NOT get logs labeled debug.
These are the valid fields for the client.logLevels key:
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
userDaemon | Logging level to be used by the User Daemon (logs to connector.log) | loglevel string | debug |
rootDaemon | Logging level to be used for the Root Daemon (logs to daemon.log) | loglevel string | info |
Routing
AlsoProxySubnets
When using alsoProxySubnets, you provide a list of subnets to be added to the TUN device.
All connections to addresses that the subnet spans will be dispatched to the cluster
Here is an example values.yaml for the subnet 1.2.3.4/32:
NeverProxySubnets
When using neverProxySubnets you provide a list of subnets. These will never be routed via the TUN device,
even if they fall within the subnets (pod or service) for the cluster. Instead, whatever route they have before
telepresence connects is the route they will keep.
Here is an example kubeconfig for the subnet 1.2.3.4/32:
Using AlsoProxy together with NeverProxy
Never proxy and also proxy are implemented as routing rules, meaning that when the two conflict, regular routing routes apply. Usually this means that the most specific route will win.
So, for example, if an alsoProxySubnets subnet falls within a broader neverProxySubnets subnet:
Then the specific alsoProxySubnets of 10.0.5.0/24 will be proxied by the TUN device, whereas the rest of 10.0.0.0/16 will not.
Conversely, if a neverProxySubnets subnet is inside a larger alsoProxySubnets subnet:
Then all of the alsoProxySubnets of 10.0.0.0/16 will be proxied, with the exception of the specific neverProxySubnets of 10.0.5.0/24
Systray
Values for client.systray can be used to configure the systray application.
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
enabled | Enable/disable the systray application. | boolean | true |
includeContexts | Kubernetes contexts to include in the menu. | sequence of strings | [] (all) |
excludeContexts | Kubernetes contexts to exclude from the menu. | sequence of strings | [] (none) |
TelepresenceAPI
The client.telepresenceAPI controls the behavior of Telepresence's RESTful API server that can be queried for additional information about ongoing intercepts. When present, and the port is set to a valid port number, it's propagated to the auto-installer so that application containers that can be intercepted gets the TELEPRESENCE_API_PORT environment set. The server can then be queried at localhost:<TELEPRESENCE_API_PORT>. In addition, the traffic-agent and the user-daemon on the workstation that performs an intercept will start the server on that port.
If the traffic-manager is auto-installed, its webhook agent injector will be configured to add the TELEPRESENCE_API_PORT environment to the app container when the traffic-agent is injected.
See RESTful API server for more info.
Timeouts
Values for client.timeouts are all durations either as a number of seconds
or as a string with a unit suffix of ms, s, m, or h. Strings
can be fractional (1.5h) or combined (2h45m).
These are the valid fields for the timeouts key:
| Field | Description | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
clusterConnect | Waiting for cluster to be connected | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 20 seconds |
connectivityCheck | Timeout used when checking if cluster is already proxied on the workstation | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 500 ms |
endpointDial | Waiting for a Dial to a service for which the IP is known | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 3 seconds |
roundtripLatency | How much to add to the endpointDial timeout when establishing a remote connection | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 2 seconds |
intercept | Waiting for an intercept to become active | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 30 seconds |
proxyDial | Waiting for an outbound connection to be established | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 5 seconds |
trafficManagerConnect | Waiting for the Traffic Manager API to connect for port forwards | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 60 seconds |
trafficManagerAPI | Waiting for connection to the gPRC API after trafficManagerConnect is successful | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 15 seconds |
helm | Waiting for Helm operations (e.g. install) on the Traffic Manager | int or float number of seconds, or duration string | 30 seconds |
Local Overrides
In addition, it is possible to override each of these variables at the local level by setting up new values in local config files.
There are two types of config values that can be set locally: those that apply to all clusters, which are set in a single config.yml file, and those
that only apply to specific clusters, which are set as extensions to the $KUBECONFIG file.
Config for all clusters
Telepresence uses a config.yml file to store and change those configuration values that will be used for all clusters you use Telepresence with.
The location of this file varies based on your OS:
- macOS:
$HOME/Library/Application Support/telepresence/config.yml - Linux:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/telepresence/config.ymlor, if that variable is not set,$HOME/.config/telepresence/config.yml - Windows:
%APPDATA%\telepresence\config.yml
For Linux, the above paths are for a user-level configuration. For system-level configuration, use the file at $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/telepresence/config.yml or, if that variable is empty, /etc/xdg/telepresence/config.yml. If a file exists at both the user-level and system-level paths, the user-level path file will take precedence.
Values
The config file currently supports values for the cloud, cluster, grpc, images, logLevels,
systray, telepresenceAPI, and timeouts keys.
The definitions of these values are identical to those values in the client config above.
Here is an example configuration to show you the conventions of how Telepresence is configured:
note: This config shouldn't be used verbatim, since the registry privateRepo used doesn't exist
Workstation Per-Cluster Configuration
Configuration that is specific to a cluster can also be overriden per-workstation by modifying your $KUBECONFIG file.
It is recommended that you do not do this, and instead rely on upstream values provided to the Traffic Manager. This ensures
that all users that connect to the Traffic Manager will have the same routing and DNS resolution behavior.
An important exception to this is the manager.namespace configuration which must be set locally.
Values
The kubeconfig supports values for dns, also-proxy, never-proxy, and manager.
Example kubeconfig:
Manager
This is the one cluster configuration that cannot be set using the Helm chart because it defines how Telepresence connects to the Traffic manager. When not default, that setting needs to be configured in the workstation's kubeconfig for the cluster.
The manager key contains configuration for finding the traffic-manager that telepresence will connect to. It supports one key, namespace, indicating the namespace where the traffic manager is to be found
Here is an example kubeconfig that will instruct telepresence to connect to a manager in namespace staging: