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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
  • Managing database access
  • Assigning permissions
  • JMX MBean permissions

Controlling Access to JMX MBeans

Many monitoring and administrative tools use Management Beans (MBeans) to perform actions on the DataStax Enterprise (DSE) cluster.

When Java Management Extensions (JMX) authentication is enabled, non-superuser roles require access to MBeans on order to use nodetool and other DataStax Enterprise (DSE) utilities. Additionally, access to MBeans may be required by third-party monitoring tools or other custom management utilities that interact with the database using JMX.

Many of the DSE utilities use the same or similar MBeans, therefore it can be difficult to create permission sets that limit the commands a user can run. For example, nodetool status, nodetool decommission, nodetool removenode, nodetool drain, and others, require EXECUTE permissions on the StorageService MBean.

All nodetool commands require DESCRIBE on all MBeans.

Access denied error when permission required

When the role martin tries to execute nodetool status without access to MBeans,

nodetool -u martin -pw password status

the request is denied.

nodetool: Failed to connect to '127.0.0.1:7199' - SecurityException: 'Access Denied'.

Procedure

  • Create an MBEAN administrator role:

    1. Create an MBean administrator role:

      CREATE ROLE mbean_admin;
    2. Give the role access to all MBeans:

      GRANT ALL PERMISSIONS on ALL MBEANS to mbean_admin;
    3. Assign the role to a user or group role:

      GRANT mbean_admin TO mike;

      To get a complete list of MBeans, see Using nodetool sjk.

  • Minimal permission is required for a role to run nodetool commands:

    1. Login to cqlsh using a superuser account or a role that has full access to MBeans.

    2. Grant the non-superuser role DESCRIBE on all MBEANS:

      GRANT DESCRIBE ON ALL MBEANS TO martin;
    3. Grant the role both SELECT and EXECUTE permission on the Storage Service MBEAN:

      GRANT SELECT, EXECUTE ON MBEAN 'org.apache.cassandra.db:type=StorageService' TO martin;
    4. Grant the role EXECUTE on the Endpoint Snitch Information MBean:

      GRANT EXECUTE ON MBEAN 'org.apache.cassandra.db:type=EndpointSnitchInfo' TO martin;

      The role martin can execute the nodetool command.

      nodetool -u martin -pw password status
      Datacenter: Cassandra
      =====================
      Status=Up/Down
      |/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
      --  Address         Load       Tokens       Owns    Host ID                               Rack
      UN  10.10.100.12  67.45 MiB  1            ?       8234303e-1f0b-4ced-844b-48e1ccbce3e2  rack1
      UN  10.10.100.30  776.03 KiB  1            ?       ff96a036-a4e3-4257-8787-a66010919c36  rack2
DSE client-tool spark Deny (denylist) db object permission

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