Configure and deploy EdgeConnect

Latest Dynatrace Dynatrace version 1.275+

Use EdgeConnect to make apps and workflows interact securely with your systems. EdgeConnect is available as a Docker container and can run in any container runtime environment.

In the following schematic, arrows point in the direction of connection initiation. EdgeConnect connects itself to AppEngine and runs a user-defined subset of HTTP(S) requests inside the desired network on behalf of the Dynatrace runtime.

EdgeConnect connectivity scheme

EdgeConnect can also operate behind an HTTP proxy:

EdgeConnect behind a proxy

Configure EdgeConnect

The Dynatrace EdgeConnect management app (ID dynatrace.edgeconnect.management) is already installed in your environment by default. Use it to create the configurations for the EdgeConnects that you plan to run in your network and to define the subset of HTTP requests that are routed to a specific EdgeConnect via host patterns.

User permissions

A regular platform user is only granted read-only access for EdgeConnect configurations through app-engine:edge-connects:read permission bound to the AppEngine-User policy.

If you want to use EdgeConnect management app to define EdgeConnects that can connect to your environment, your user needs to belong to a group bound to the policy with specific IAM permissions.

The default AppEngine-Admin policy already contains the necessary scopes, so an admin user can fully manage EdgeConnect configurations by default.

If you need to create your own policy for your admin users, you need to include the following permissions in your policy.

Read EdgeConnect configurations

ALLOW app-engine:edge-connects:read;

Create a new EdgeConnect configuration

ALLOW app-engine:edge-connects:write, oauth2:clients:manage WHERE oauth2:scopes = "app-engine:edge-connects:connect";

You need OAuth client management permission to create the OAuth client for a new EdgeConnect.

Update an EdgeConnect configuration:

ALLOW app-engine:edge-connects:write;

Rotate the OAuth client secret of an EdgeConnect

ALLOW oauth2:clients:manage where oauth2:scopes="app-engine:edge-connects:connect";

Delete an EdgeConnect

ALLOW app-engine:edge-connects:delete, oauth2:clients:manage WHERE oauth2:scopes = "app-engine:edge-connects:connect";

You need OAuth client management permission to delete the OAuth client for an EdgeConnect.

To adjust the policies and group memberships of users, go to Account Management > Identity & access management and select People, Groups, or Policies. For more information, see Manage IAM policies.

Create a new EdgeConnect configuration

Before deploying an EdgeConnect in your network, you need to map specific HTTP request host patterns to specific EdgeConnect instances.

Open the EdgeConnect Management app.
Select New EdgeConnect.
- Enter a unique name for the EdgeConnect instance.
  - Name must be RFC 1123 Label Names compliant with maximum length of 50 characters
- Provide the host patterns of the requests that should be handled by the EdgeConnect instance.
  
  You can use a wildcard to replace the first parts of the host domain. For example, *.myapp.org matches staging.myapp.org and prod.myapp.org.
Select Create.
Download the edgeConnect.yaml configuration file that was created. This file is the configuration file that needs to be used for configuring the EdgeConnect image to be run in the next section.

Be aware that the OAuth client secret is only displayed to you once and can not be retrieved later on. Subsequently, the configuration file can still be downloaded from the app but the OAuth client secret won't be preset anymore.

Any HTTP request (from your app functions, workflows, or ad-hoc functions) that matches a defined host pattern is handled by an EdgeConnect instance that you specify in that configuration.

For example, given a host pattern of staging.myapp.org in its configuration, the Dynatrace runtime will route an HTTP request with the URL https://staging.myapp.org/test.html to that EdgeConnect.

Now you're ready to deploy the respective EdgeConnect in your network.

Deploy EdgeConnect

Ensure connectivity

Configure EdgeConnect image

Get EdgeConnect container image

Run the container

Validate the connection

Complete the following steps to get your EdgeConnect up and running.

Ensure connectivity

EdgeConnect needs to be able to connect to Dynatrace and your internal systems.

Connectivity to Dynatrace

EdgeConnect initiates the following connections to operate.

https://sso.dynatrace.com/sso/oauth2/token
https://<your environment ID>.apps.dynatrace.com

EdgeConnect does not require any inbound connection from Dynatrace.

Connectivity in your network

EdgeConnect requires connectivity to any application in your network that you want Dynatrace to connect to for app functions, ad-hoc functions, or workflow actions. If your EdgeConnect communicates behind a proxy over HTTPS, you also need to add the trusted root certificates of the hosts EdgeConnect connects to. If the HTTP proxy performs the TLS interception, you also need to add the certificate of this proxy. For instructions, see Root certificates.

Configure EdgeConnect image

The EdgeConnect docker container needs an edgeConnect.yaml configuration file that should be downloaded from the EdgeConnect management app when you initially created the configuration. You reference the file when you run the EdgeConnect docker image.

Note that you need to reference the name, oauth.client_id, and oauth.client_secret as configured in the app. Otherwise, EdgeConnect won't be allowed to connect to the platform.

Example edgeConnect.yaml

name: my-corporate-network
api_endpoint_host: abc12345.apps.dynatrace.com
oauth:
  endpoint: https://sso.dynatrace.com/sso/oauth2/token
  client_id: dt0s10.your-oauth-client-id
  client_secret: *******
  resource: urn:dtenvironment:abc12345
restrict_hosts_to: "internal.example.org,staging.example.org"
root_certificate_paths:
  - "/path/to/some/certificate.cer"
  - "/path/to/another/certificate.pem"
proxy:
  server: proxy.example.org
  port: 8037
  exceptions: "*.foo.com,noproxy.example.org"
  auth:
    user: "proxy-user"
    password: "*******"

You can override certain configuration values via environment variables. Refer to the table below for environment variable names of each field.

Field descriptions

The edgeConnect.yaml fields and the names of the corresponding environment variables are described in the table below. Please note that some environment variable names use both single (_) and double underscore symbols (__).

Field	Environment Variable	Description
`name`	`EDGE_CONNECT_NAME`	The technical identifier of the EdgeConnect. This has to match the name that was specified in the configuration added in the app.
`api_endpoint_host`	`EDGE_CONNECT_API_ENDPOINT_HOST`	Your environment base URL.
`oauth.endpoint`	`EDGE_CONNECT_OAUTH__ENDPOINT`	The token endpoint URL of Dynatrace SSO.
`oauth.client_id`	`EDGE_CONNECT_OAUTH__CLIENT_ID`	The ID of the OAuth client that was created along with the EdgeConnect configuration.
`oauth.client_secret`	`EDGE_CONNECT_OAUTH__CLIENT_SECRET`	The secret of the OAuth client that was created along with the EdgeConnect configuration.
`oauth.resource`	`EDGE_CONNECT_OAUTH__RESOURCE`	The URN identifying your tenant.
`restrict_hosts_to` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_RESTRICT_HOSTS_TO`	Restricts outgoing HTTP requests to specified hosts. You can use a wildcard to replace the first parts of the host domain. For example, `*.myapp.org` will match `staging.myapp.org` and `prod.myapp.org`. Separate multiple entries with commas. If `restrict_hosts_to` is configured, any other requests are rejected, including host patterns specified in host pattern mapping that don't match this configuration. `restrict_hosts_to` is only used to additionally restrict connections. You still need to create host pattern mapping for EdgeConnect to be able to connect to your internal resources.
`root_certificate_paths` optional	N/A	For communication over TLS-encrypted channels (HTTPS and secure WebSockets), EdgeConnect verifies the identity of a host based on its certificate. The parameter lists such certificates. You must mount these certificates into the EdgeConnect container. The parameter lists the paths to certificates in the container itself. For more information, see Root-certificates instructions. EdgeConnect supports certificate files in the PEM (`.pem`, `.crt`, or `.cer`) and DER (`.der`) formats.
`proxy.server` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_PROXY__SERVER`	Server address (hostname or IP address) of the proxy.
`proxy.port` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_PROXY__PORT`	Port of the proxy.
`proxy.exceptions` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_PROXY__EXCEPTIONS`	A list of hosts for which EdgeConnect should not use the configured proxy for communication. You can use a wildcard to replace the first parts of a host domain. For example, `*.myapp.org` will match `staging.myapp.org` and `prod.myapp.org`. Separate multiple entries with commas.
`proxy.auth.user` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_PROXY__AUTH__USER`	User name for authentication with the proxy, using the "Basic" HTTP authentication scheme.
`proxy.auth.password` optional	`EDGE_CONNECT_PROXY__AUTH__PASSWORD`	Password for authentication with the proxy, using the "Basic" HTTP authentication scheme.

EdgeConnect in Kubernetes

Learn about the parameters required for EdgeConnect as a custom Kubernetes resource in Set up EdgeConnect.

Get EdgeConnect container image

To run the EdgeConnect container, you first need to get the image.

docker pull dynatrace/edgeconnect:latest

We recommend that you always run (and regularly upgrade to) the latest available version of EdgeConnect.

You'll be notified on a successful download.

Status: Downloaded image for dynatrace/edgeconnect:latest
docker.io/dynatrace/edgeconnect:latest

Run the container

Go to the directory with the edgeConnect.yaml file you created.

Run the container.

docker run \
--mount type=bind,src=${PWD}/edgeConnect.yaml,dst=/edgeConnect.yaml \
-d --restart always \
dynatrace/edgeconnect \

Root certificates

For communication over TLS-encrypted channels (HTTPS and secure WebSockets), EdgeConnect verifies the identity of a host based on its certificate.

To communicate with hosts that use custom certificates, you must add paths to the certificates to the root_certificate_paths parameter of the edgeConnect.yaml file and mount the certificates into the EdgeConnect container.

EdgeConnect supports certificate files in the PEM (".pem", ".crt" or ".cer") and DER (".der") format.

Edit the edgeConnect.yaml file and add the target path in your EdgeConnect container where the certificates are stored. For example:
```
root_certificate_paths:
  - "/path/to/mounted/certificate.pem"
```
Mount a custom root certificate into the EdgeConnect container. You can use the -v parameter when running the container. For example:
```
docker run \
--mount type=bind,src=${PWD}/edgeConnect.yaml,dst=/edgeConnect.yaml \
-d --restart always \
-v /host/path/to/certificate.pem:/container/path/to/mounted/certificate.pem
dynatrace/edgeconnect \
```
Where,
- /host/path/to/certificate.pem is the certificate on the host your EdgeConnect connects to
- /container/path/to/mounted/certificate.pem is the target path in your EdgeConnect container where the certificates are stored

Proxy with TLS interception

If you are using EdgeConnect behind an HTTP proxy that performs TLS interception, it is necessary to add the proxy's certificate to the root_certificate_paths field, to ensure that EdgeConnect can verify the proxy's identity.

Validate the connection

Validate the EdgeConnect successfully connected to the platform.

Open the EdgeConnect Management app.
Check the Availability column. It should display 🟢 online.
- If it's still offline, check the Docker container's logs for error messages.
- If the app says that there are online EdgeConnect instances, congratulations! You have safely connected your environment to the Dynatrace platform.
  
  From now on, any HTTP request that occurs as part of an app function, ad hoc function, or workflow action matching a host pattern, will be transparently run by EdgeConnect instead of directly by the Dynatrace runtime.

System Requirements

For a typical EdgeConnect deployment, we recommend 1 GB of memory and 1 CPU. Memory requirements might vary depending on the payload size of the handled requests. EdgeConnect requires the following network connectivity.

HTTPS(443) to https://sso.dynatrace.com/sso/oauth2/token
HTTPS(443) and WSS-Secure websocket(443) https://<your environment ID>.apps.dynatrace.com as well as to any target system EdgeConnect requests shall connect to.

Security

Security-related configuration requirements and recommendations for EdgeConnect are based on the "least privilege" principle.

What EdgeConnect does

EdgeConnect establishes a WebSocket secure connection (WSS/443) to AppEngine and thus doesn't require any inbound connection. To achieve this, EdgeConnect must be able to create an outbound WSS/443 connection to your Dynatrace environment.
EdgeConnect works in the environment context and transparently performs any HTTP(S) requests in AppEngine matching the defined host patterns. Anyone with the respective permissions to trigger an app function, ad hoc JavaScript, or workflow in an environment can issue HTTP(S) requests to the matching hosts.

What you should do

Restrict EdgeConnect deployments to the network required to reach the intended systems only.
Define the EdgeConnect host pattern configuration as specifically as possible so only the required HTTP(S) requests are forwarded.
Use the EdgeConnect local configuration to restrict the allowed hosts to reach (see the optional restrict_hosts_to property in the table above). Defined host patterns can never exceed the local host restriction. A local host restriction alone doesn't result in any HTTP(S) request forwarding.