On Cassandra how to enable LDAP authentication

Question

I have a Cassandra cluster running on Ubuntu. I would like to enable authentication so that not everyone will have access to the Cassandra database and run queries.

Enabling simple authentication is available at https://docs.datastax.com/en/cassandra/3.0/cassandra/configuration/secureConfigNativeAuth.html

But, I am looking for integrating Cassandra with LDAP, Active Directory

Answer 1

You will have to change the default authenticator from AllowAllAuthenticator to PasswordAuthenticator or some custom authenticator.

You can also enable roles for a finer grained access.

Check the following:

• http://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/operating/security.html?highlight=authenticator#authentication
• https://docs.datastax.com/en/cassandra/3.0/cassandra/configuration/secureConfigNativeAuth.html

Later edit: since you need LDAP autentication you can use the one created by Instaclustr. Details - Apache Cassandra LDAP Authentication and the source code.

Answer 2

Just replace PasswordAuthenticator from AllowAllAuthenticator and CassandraAuthorizer from AllowAllAuthorizer on cassandra.yaml. Restart the Cassandra services. it will allow without password.