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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
  • Transparent data encryption
  • About Transparent Data Encryption

About Transparent Data Encryption

Protects sensitive at-rest data using a local encryption key file or remotely stored and managed Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) encryption key.

  • Configuration file properties: Protects LDAP search password, LDAP truststore password, SSL truststore passwords.

  • System resources: Protected properties using the same key for the system.batchlog and system.paxos tables, hint files and commit logs.

  • Database tables and SSTable indexes: Protects all data in the table and on-disk SSTable indexes. Different tables can use different keys.

    SSTable data files are immutable once they have been flushed to disk and are only encrypted during the write to disk. To encrypt existing data, use the nodetool upgradesstables with the -a option to rewrite the tables to disk with encryption.

    When Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is enabled, starting in DSE 6.8, all header data in indexes are encrypted including partition keys in SSTable indexes. This feature is designed to protect sensitive data that might be present in the primary key. Consequently, DSE cannot access SSTables that are not decryptable. When non-decryptable SSTables are present, DSE issues an error message during startup. If the error is ignored because the disk failure policy is specified as either ignore or best_effort, then DSE skips the non-decryptable SSTable and therefore ignores its content on queries without issuing a warning or error.

Data that is not encrypted

DSE does not encrypt the following:

  • Database files other than the commit log

  • SSTable data files such as offsets and tokens

  • DSEFS data files

Requirements

To use the DataStax Enterprise (DSE) Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature, enable the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE).

Starting in JDK 8u161, JCE Unlimited is enabled by default. Refer to the Release Notes for JDK 8u161.

When using TDE secure local file system. Encryption keys are stored remotely with KMIP encryption or locally with on-server encryption.

TDE limitations and recommendations

The following utilities cannot access encrypted data, but operate on all unencrypted data.

Compression and encryption introduce performance overhead.

Data is not directly protected by TDE when you access the data using the following utilities.

Table 1. Utililties
Utility Reason utility is not encrypted

nodetool

Uses only JMX, so data is not accessed.

sstableloader

Operates directly on the SSTables.

sstablescrub

Operates directly on the SSTables.

sstableutil

Operates directly on the SSTables.

sstableverify

Operates directly on the SSTables.

Restriction: Lifecycle Manager (LCM) is not compatible when config_encryption_active is true in DSE and OpsCenter. For LCM limitations, see Encrypted DSE configuration values.

TDE options

To get the full capabilities of TDE and to ensure full algorithm support, enable JCE.

Starting in JDK 8u161, JCE Unlimited is enabled by default. Refer to the Release Notes for JDK 8u161.

Transparent data encryption Configuring local encryption

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