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DataStax Enterprise 6.8 Security Guide

    • About DSE Advanced Security
    • Security FAQs
    • Security checklists
    • Securing the environment
      • Securing ports
      • Securing the TMP directory
    • Authentication and authorization
      • Configuring authentication and authorization
        • About DSE Unified Authentication
          • Steps for new deployment
          • Steps for production environments
        • Configuring security keyspaces
        • Setting up Kerberos
          • Kerberos guidelines
          • Enabling JCE Unlimited
            • Removing AES-256
          • Preparing DSE nodes for Kerberos
            • DNS and NTP
            • krb5.conf
            • Principal
            • Keytab
        • Enabling authentication and authorization
          • Defining a Kerberos scheme
          • Defining an LDAP scheme
        • Configuring JMX authentication
        • Configuring cache settings
        • Securing schema information
      • Managing database access
        • About RBAC
        • Setting up logins and users
          • Adding a superuser login
          • Adding database users
          • LDAP users and groups
            • LDAP logins
            • LDAP groups
          • Kerberos principal logins
          • Setting up roles for applications
          • Binding a role to an authentication scheme
        • Assigning permissions
          • Database object permissions
            • Data resources
            • Functions and aggregate resources
            • Search indexes
            • Roles
            • Proxy login and execute
            • Authentication schemes
            • DSE Utilities (MBeans)
            • Analytic applications
            • Remote procedure calls
          • Separation of duties
          • Keyspaces and tables
          • Row Level Access Control (RLAC)
          • Search index permissions
          • DataStax Graph keyspace
          • Spark application permissions
          • DataStax Studio permissions
          • Remote procedure calls
          • DSE client-tool spark
          • JMX MBean permissions
          • Deny (denylist) db object permission
          • Restricting access to data
      • Providing credentials from DSE tools
        • About clients
        • Internal and LDAP authentication
          • Command line
          • File
          • Environment variables
          • Using CQLSH
        • Kerberos
          • JAAS configuration file location
          • Keytab
          • Ticket Cache
          • Spark jobs
          • SSTableLoader
          • Graph and gremlin-console
          • dsetool
          • CQLSH
        • Nodetool
        • JConsole
    • Auditing database activity
      • Enabling database auditing
      • Capturing DSE Search HTTP requests
      • Log formats
      • View events from DSE audit table
    • Transparent data encryption
      • About Transparent Data Encryption
      • Configuring local encryption
        • Setting up local encryption keys
        • Encrypting configuration file properties
        • Encrypting system resources
        • Encrypting tables
        • Rekeying existing data
        • Using tools with TDE-encrypted SSTables
        • Troubleshooting encryption key errors
      • Configuring KMIP encryption
      • Encrypting Search indexes
        • Encrypting new Search indexes
        • Encrypting existing Search indexes
        • Tuning encrypted Search indexes
      • Migrating encrypted tables from earlier versions
      • Bulk loading data between TDE-enabled clusters
    • Configuring SSL
      • Steps for configuring SSL
      • Creating SSL certificates, keystores, and truststores
        • Remote keystore provider
        • Local keystore files
      • Securing node-to-node connections
      • Securing client-to-node connections
        • Configuring JMX on the server side
        • nodetool, nodesync, dsetool, and Advanced Replication
        • JConsole (JMX)
        • SSTableloader
        • Connecting to SSL-enabled nodes using cqlsh
      • Enabling SSL encryption for DSEFS
      • Reference: SSL instruction variables
    • Securing Spark connections
  • DataStax Enterprise 6.8 Security Guide
  • Authentication and authorization
  • Configuring authentication and authorization
  • About DSE Unified Authentication
  • Steps for production environments

Steps for Production Environments

To enable access control without downtime or interrupting services, use transitional modes to temporarily support applications and users that do not have accounts.

Procedure

  1. Update all applications to provide credentials and ensure that they use the latest DSE driver, see DataStax drivers. When using authentication.transitional_mode, you can provide a blank username and password to log in with the anonymous role.

    When authentication and authorization are disabled, the credentials portion of the connection request is ignored. After authentication is enabled all connections must provide credentials.

  2. Change the replication factor for the security keyspaces, see Configuring the security keyspaces replication factors.

  3. Run a full repair of the system_auth and dse_auth keyspace.

  4. On each node, enable authentication and authorization in transitional mode:

    • Set authentication_options and transitional_mode to permissive.

    • Set authorization_options and auth_transitional_mode to normal.

      See Enabling DSE Unified Authentication.

  5. Turn on logging to allow verification that applications can authenticate. See Setting up database auditing.

  6. Enable JMX authentication, see Controlling access to JMX MBeans.

  7. Perform a rolling restart.

    The transactional nodes are vulnerable to malicious activity following the restart. Anybody can access the system using the default cassandra account with password cassandra. DataStax recommends isolating the cluster until after disabling the cassandra account.

  8. After the restarts are complete, use cqlsh to replace the cassandra default account, see Adding a superuser login.

    Using the default cassandra account may impact performance. All requests including login execute with consistency level QUORUM. DataStax recommends using this account only to create your root account.

  9. Switch to the new root account and configure roles and assign permissions, see Setting up logins and users.

  10. Use the audit logs, or the KDC logs when using Kerberos, to verify that all applications can access the transactional nodes and have the permissions required to execute requests. See Log formats.

  11. In the dse.yaml file, set authentication_options and authorization_options transitional_mode to disabled.

  12. Perform a rolling restart.

Steps for new deployment Configuring security keyspaces

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