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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
  • Configuring local encryption
  • Rekeying existing data

Rekeying Existing Data

Create a new local encryption key, change the table key filename, and re-encrypt the SSTables using the new key. When changing the system key, all existing data must be re-encrypted before removing the old key.

Prerequisites

These steps require the following privileges:

  • DataStax Enterprise node administrator or superuser account with read/write/modify permission on DSE resources and configuration directories.

  • When DSE database authentication and authorization is enabled, a database account with ALTER TABLE permission on the encrypted tables.

Procedure

  1. Back up SSTables.

  2. Create a new local encryption key and distribute to nodes in the cluster:

    1. Go to the key file directory, which is defined in the system_key_directory setting of the dse.yaml.

      The location of the dse.yaml file depends on the type of installation:

      • Package installations: /etc/dse/dse.yaml

      • Tarball installations: <installation_location>/resources/dse/conf/dse.yaml

    2. Use dsetool createsystemkey to create a new system key in the key file directory:

      dsetool createsystemkey 'AES/ECB/PKCS5Padding' 128 <new_system_key>

      Both the new and old key are required for re-encryption. Do NOT remove the old key until after changing the table schema and rekeying the existing SSTables.

    3. Verify that the database account has read and write access to the files:

      la -l

      In this example DSE is the account that runs the database.

      -rw------- 1 dse dse 50 May 19 10:54 system_key
      -rw------- 1 dse dse 50 May 19 11:20 new_system_key
    4. Copy the new key to the system key directory on all nodes in the cluster.

      Ensure that the new key has the correct permissions.

  3. Change the key filename in the table schemas:

    1. Get a list of all the encrypted tables that you want to change.

      Use the DESC KEYSPACE keyspace_name cqlsh command to show all table properties in a keyspace.

    2. For each table where you want use the new encryption key, change the key filename in the table schema:

      ALTER TABLE <keyspace_name>.<table_name>
      WITH compression = { 'sstable_compression' : 'EncryptingSnappyCompressor',
        'cipher_algorithm' : 'AES/ECB/PKCS5Padding',
        'secret_key_strength' : 128,
        'chunk_length_kb' : 128,
        'system_key_file':'<new_system_key>' }
    3. Ensure that the schema change has replicated to all nodes in the cluster:

      nodetool describecluster

      The following example shows a small three node cluster where all three nodes have the same schema. If any of the nodes have a different schema, then wait until the schema changes are propagated before continuing with the next step.

      	Name: Cluster1
      	Snitch: org.apache.cassandra.locator.DynamicEndpointSnitch
      	Partitioner: org.apache.cassandra.dht.Murmur3Partitioner
      	Schema versions:
      		25743512-6b6f-3f76-96bc-1122d441f539: [<node1_IP>, <node2_IP>, <node3_IP>]
  4. Use nodetool upgradesstables to rewrite the encrypted SSTables using the new key. Run the following command on every node in the cluster:

    • Target only specific tables:

      nodetool upgradesstables --include-all-sstables keyspace_name table_name [table_name …]
    • Target specific keyspace:

      nodetool upgradesstables --include-all-sstables keyspace_name
    • All keyspaces and tables:

      nodetool upgradesstables --include-all-sstables
  5. After completing the prior steps, remove the old key and ensure that the old key is not used for any tables or configuration file property encryption.

    The old key is required to access the backed up SSTables created in the first step.

Encrypting tables Using tools with TDE-encrypted SSTables

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