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Cassandra database secrets engine

warning

Note: This engine can use external X.509 certificates as part of TLS or signature validation. Verifying signatures against X.509 certificates that use SHA-1 is deprecated and is no longer usable without a workaround. See the deprecation FAQ for more information.

Cassandra is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. This plugin generates database credentials dynamically based on configured roles for the Cassandra database.

See the database secrets engine docs for more information about setting up the database secrets engine.

Capabilities​

Plugin NameRoot Credential RotationDynamic RolesStatic RolesUsername Customization
cassandra-database-pluginYesYesYes (1.6+)Yes (1.7+)

Setup​

  1. OpenBao will need a Cassandra user with the following permissions:

    GRANT CREATE ON ALL ROLES to '<YOUR USER>';
    GRANT ALTER ON ALL ROLES to '<YOUR USER>';
    GRANT DROP ON ALL ROLES to '<YOUR USER>';
    GRANT AUTHORIZE ON ALL ROLES to '<YOUR USER>';

  2. Enable the database secrets engine if it is not already enabled:

    $ bao secrets enable database
    Success! Enabled the database secrets engine at: database/

    By default, the secrets engine will enable at the name of the engine. To enable the secrets engine at a different path, use the -path argument.

  3. Configure OpenBao with the proper plugin and connection information:

    $ bao write database/config/my-cassandra-database \
        plugin_name="cassandra-database-plugin" \
        hosts=127.0.0.1 \
        protocol_version=4 \
        username=openbaouser \
        password=openbaopass \
        allowed_roles=my-role

  4. Configure a role that maps a name in OpenBao to an SQL statement to execute to create the database credential:

    $ bao write database/roles/my-role \
        db_name=my-cassandra-database \
        creation_statements="CREATE USER '{{username}}' WITH PASSWORD '{{password}}' NOSUPERUSER; \
              GRANT SELECT ON ALL KEYSPACES TO {{username}};" \
        default_ttl="1h" \
        max_ttl="24h"
    Success! Data written to: database/roles/my-role

Usage​

After the secrets engine is configured and a user/machine has an OpenBao token with the proper permission, it can generate credentials.

  1. Generate a new credential by reading from the /creds endpoint with the name of the role:

    $ bao read database/creds/my-role
    Key                Value
    ---                -----
    lease_id           database/creds/my-role/2f6a614c-4aa2-7b19-24b9-ad944a8d4de6
    lease_duration     1h
    lease_renewable    true
    password           7iO-FxlVCdj8szsgGgsL
    username           v_openbaouser_my_role_6zjahr4mjn5c9prgucy1_1602541475

API​

The full list of configurable options can be seen in the Cassandra database plugin API page.

For more information on the database secrets engine's HTTP API please see the Database secret secrets engine API page.