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Authentication with SASL

Table of Contents

SASL Overview

Kafka brokers supports client authentication via SASL. SASL authentication can be enabled concurrently with SSL encryption (SSL client authentication will be disabled).

The supported SASL mechanisms are:

  • GSSAPI (Kerberos)
  • SCRAM
  • PLAIN

JAAS configurations

As part of enabling any of the SASL authentication mechanisms, you must provide Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) configurations.

Brokers can configure JAAS by passing a static JAAS configuration file into the JVM using the java.security.auth.login.config property at runtime. For example:

$ export KAFKA_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=/etc/kafka/kafka_server_jaas.conf"
$ bin/kafka-server-start etc/kafka/server.properties

Tip

These instructions assume you are installing Confluent Platform by using ZIP or TAR archives. For more information, see Installing and Upgrading.

Clients, on the other hand, have two ways to configure JAAS:

  1. pass a static JAAS configuration file into the JVM using the java.security.auth.login.config property at runtime, as done with brokers
  2. embed the JAAS configuration itself in the configuration property sasl.jaas.config

The preferred method for clients is the second way: to embed the JAAS configuration itself in the configuration property sasl.jaas.config, or whatever is the client’s prefixed configuration property for sasl.jaas.config. For example:

sasl.jaas.config=org.apache.kafka.common.security.plain.PlainLoginModule required \
   username="confluent" \
   password="confluent-secret";

If a client specifies both the client property sasl.jaas.config and the static JAAS configuration system property java.security.auth.login.config, the client property sasl.jaas.config will be used.

JAAS and Confluent Control Center

There is one scenario when you should explicitly use the client property sasl.jaas.config instead of passing in the JVM argument -Djava.security.auth.login.config=/path/to/jaas.config, and that is when you are using Confluent Control Center that has its own Kafka cluster separate from the production cluster being monitored, and the security profile differs between the two clusters.

If you were to use java.security.auth.login.config, it would set a single configuration for the whole JVM for communicating to the production cluster being monitored as well as the cluster backing Control Center. This may be undesirable because this wouldn’t distinguish security profiles to each cluster.

Instead, use the client property to differentiate the security profiles, i.e., different JAAS configurations, depending on the target cluster:

  • production cluster: e.g., sasl.jaas.config
  • monitoring cluster: for Confluent Metrics Reporter use confluent.metrics.reporter.sasl.jaas.config, and for Confluent Monitoring Interceptors use confluent.monitoring.interceptor.sasl.jaas.config.

Enabling multiple SASL mechanisms

Multiple SASL mechanisms can be enabled on the broker simultaneously while each client has to choose one mechanism.

Specify the configuration for the login modules of all enabled mechanisms in the KafkaServer section of the broker JAAS config file. For example:

 KafkaServer {
   com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required
   useKeyTab=true
   storeKey=true
   keyTab="/etc/security/keytabs/kafka_server.keytab"
   principal="kafka/kafka1.hostname.com@EXAMPLE.COM";

   org.apache.kafka.common.security.plain.PlainLoginModule required
   username="admin"
   password="admin-secret"
   user_admin="admin-secret"
   user_alice="alice-secret";
};

Enable the SASL mechanisms in server.properties:

# List of enabled mechanisms, can be more than one
sasl.enabled.mechanisms=GSSAPI,PLAIN

Specify the SASL security protocol and mechanism for inter-broker communication in server.properties if required:

# Configure SASL_SSL if SSL encryption is enabled, otherwise configure SASL_PLAINTEXT
security.inter.broker.protocol=SASL_SSL

# Configure the appropriate inter-broker protocol
sasl.mechanism.inter.broker.protocol=GSSAPI

Then follow the mechanism-specific steps in GSSAPI, SCRAM, and PLAIN to configure SASL for the enabled mechanisms.

Modifying SASL mechanisms in a Running Cluster

The SASL mechanisms can be modified in a running cluster using the following sequence:

  1. Enable new SASL mechanism by adding the mechanism to sasl.enabled.mechanisms in server.properties for each broker. Update JAAS config file to include both mechanisms as described here. Incrementally restart the cluster nodes, taking into consideration the recommendations for doing rolling restarts to avoid downtime for end users..
  2. Restart clients using the new mechanism (if required).
  3. To change the inter-broker communication mechanism (if required), set sasl.mechanism.inter.broker.protocol in server.properties to the new mechanism and incrementally restart the cluster again.
  4. To remove the old mechanism (if required), remove the old mechanism from sasl.enabled.mechanisms in server.properties and remove the entries for the old mechanism from JAAS config file. Incrementally restart the cluster again.

Note that the sequence above is somewhat complex to cater for all possible mechanism changes. For example, to add a new mechanism in the brokers and swap the clients to use it, you would simply have to do steps 1 and 2.