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Laptop-side configuration

Global Configuration

Telepresence uses a config.yml file to store and change certain global 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.yml or, 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 timeouts, logLevels, images, cloud, and grpc keys.

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

Timeouts

Values for 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:

FieldDescriptionTypeDefault
agentInstallWaiting for Traffic Agent to be installedint or float number of seconds, or duration string2 minutes
applyWaiting for a Kubernetes manifest to be appliedint or float number of seconds, or duration string1 minute
clusterConnectWaiting for cluster to be connectedint or float number of seconds, or duration string20 seconds
interceptWaiting for an intercept to become activeint or float number of seconds, or duration string5 seconds
proxyDialWaiting for an outbound connection to be establishedint or float number of seconds, or duration string5 seconds
trafficManagerConnectWaiting for the Traffic Manager API to connect for port fowardsint or float number of seconds, or duration string20 seconds
trafficManagerAPIWaiting for connection to the gPRC API after trafficManagerConnect is successfulint or float number of seconds, or duration string15 seconds
helmWaiting for Helm operations (e.g. install) on the Traffic Managerint or float number of seconds, or duration string2 minutes

Log Levels

Values for the logLevels fields are one of the following strings, case insensitive:

  • trace
  • debug
  • info
  • warning or warn
  • error

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 logLevels key:

FieldDescriptionTypeDefault
userDaemonLogging level to be used by the User Daemon (logs to connector.log)loglevel stringdebug
rootDaemonLogging level to be used for the Root Daemon (logs to daemon.log)loglevel stringinfo

Images

Values for 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.

Additionally, you can deploy the server-side components with Helm, to prevent them from being overridden by a client's config and use the mutating-webhook to handle installation of the traffic-agents.

These are the valid fields for the images key:

FieldDescriptionTypeDefault
registryDocker registry to be used for installing the Traffic Manager and default Traffic Agent. If not using a helm chart to deploy server-side objects, changing this value will create a new traffic-manager deployment when using Telepresence commands. Additionally, changing this value will update installed default traffic-agents to use the new registry when creating a new intercept.Docker registry name stringdocker.io/datawire
agentImage$registry/$imageName:$imageTag to use when installing the Traffic Agent. Changing this value will update pre-existing traffic-agents to use this new image. The registry value is not used for the traffic-agent if you have this value set.qualified Docker image name string(unset)
webhookRegistryThe container $registry that the Traffic Manager will use with the webhookAgentImage This value is only used if a new traffic-manager is deployedDocker registry name stringdocker.io/datawire
webhookAgentImageThe container image that the Traffic Manager will pull from the webhookRegistry when installing the Traffic Agent in annotated pods This value is only used if a new traffic-manager is deployednon-qualified Docker image name string(unset)

Cloud

Values for 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.

FieldDescriptionTypeDefault
skipLoginWhether the CLI should skip automatic login to Ambassador Cloud. If set to true, in order to perform personal intercepts you must have a license key installed in the cluster.boolfalse
refreshMessagesHow frequently the CLI should communicate with Ambassador Cloud to get new command messages, which also resets whether the message has been raised or not. You will see each message at most once within the duration given by this configduration string168h
systemaHostThe host used to communicate with Ambassador Cloudstringapp.getambassador.io
systemaPortThe port used with systemaHost to communicate with Ambassador Cloudstring443

Telepresence attempts to auto-detect if the cluster is capable of communication with Ambassador Cloud, but may still prompt you to log in in cases where only the on-laptop client wishes to communicate with Ambassador Cloud. If you want those auto-login points to be disabled as well, or would like it to not attempt to communicate with Ambassador Cloud at all (even for the auto-detection), then be sure to set the skipLogin value to true.

Reminder: To use personal intercepts, which normally require a login, you must have a license key in your cluster and specify which agentImage should be installed by also adding the following to your config.yml:

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:

RESTful API server

The 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.

Intercept

The intercept controls applies to how telepresence will intercept the communications to the intercepted service.

The defaultPort controls which port is selected when no --port flag is given to the telepresence intercept command. The default value is "8080".

The appProtocolStrategy is only relevant when using personal intercepts. This controls how telepresence selects the application protocol to use when intercepting a service that has no service.ports.appProtocol defined. Valid values are:

ValueResulting action
http2ProbeThe telepresence traffic-agent will probe the intercepted container to check whether it supports http2
portNameTelepresence will make an educated guess about the protocol based on the name of the service port
httpTelepresence will use http
http2Telepresence 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:

ProtocolMeaning
httpPlaintext HTTP/1.1 traffic
http2Plaintext HTTP/2 traffic
httpsTLS Encrypted HTTP (1.1 or 2) traffic
grpcSame as http2

Per-Cluster Configuration

Some configuration is not global to Telepresence and is actually specific to a cluster. Thus, we store that config information in your kubeconfig file, so that it is easier to maintain per-cluster configuration.

Values

The current per-cluster configuration supports dns, alsoProxy, and manager keys. To add configuration, simply add a telepresence.io entry to the cluster in your kubeconfig like so:

DNS

The fields for dns are: local-ip, remote-ip, exclude-suffixes, include-suffixes, and lookup-timeout.

FieldDescriptionTypeDefault
local-ipThe address of the local DNS server. This entry is only used on Linux systems that are not configured to use systemd-resolved.IP address stringfirst nameserver mentioned in /etc/resolv.conf
remote-ipThe address of the cluster's DNS service.IP address stringIP of the kube-dns.kube-system or the dns-default.openshift-dns service
exclude-suffixesSuffixes for which the DNS resolver will always fail (or fallback in case of the overriding resolver)sequence of strings[".arpa", ".com", ".io", ".net", ".org", ".ru"]
include-suffixesSuffixes for which the DNS resolver will always attempt to do a lookup. Includes have higher priority than excludes.sequence of strings[]
lookup-timeoutMaximum time to wait for a cluster side host lookup.duration string4 seconds

Here is an example kubeconfig:

AlsoProxy

When using also-proxy, you provide a list of subnets after the key in your kubeconfig file 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 kubeconfig for the subnet 1.2.3.4/32:

NeverProxy

When using never-proxy you provide a list of subnets after the key in your kubeconfig file. 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 also-proxy subnet falls within a broader never-proxy subnet:

Then the specific also-proxy 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 never-proxy subnet is inside a larger also-proxy subnet:

Then all of the also-proxy of 10.0.0.0/16 will be proxied, with the exception of the specific never-proxy of 10.0.5.0/24

Manager

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: