Configure HTTP Basic Authentication with Control Center

HTTP Basic authentication is a simple way to implement access control. You can configure Confluent Control Center UI access control using HTTP Basic authentication. This authenticates users’ access to Control Center.

You can also configure Control Center client authentication to other Confluent Platform components with HTTP Basic authentication enabled.

Note

For more sophisticated access control, Configure Role-based Access Control for Control Center.

Enable Basic authentication for Control Center

You can require a user to log in to Control Center by configuring HTTP Basic authentication using Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS). JAAS provides a pluggable model, with details specified at runtime. For details on all configuration options, see UI authentication settings.

To configure Control Center authentication:

1. Specify the following options in the appropriate Control Center property file. Use the confluent.controlcenter.rest.authentication.roles and confluent.controlcenter.auth.restricted.roles to create groups of users; either administrators, which have full read and write access, or restricted users that have only read access.

   • Specify values for confluent.controlcenter.rest.authentication.roles in the following format: <administrator_group_name>,<restricted_group_name>

   • The restricted value is the name of your restricted group: confluent.controlcenter.auth.restricted.roles is <restricted_group_name>.

     confluent.controlcenter.rest.authentication.method=BASIC
     confluent.controlcenter.rest.authentication.realm=c3
     confluent.controlcenter.rest.authentication.roles=Administrators,Restricted
     confluent.controlcenter.auth.restricted.roles=Restricted
     confluent.controlcenter.auth.session.expiration.ms=600000
     

2. Create a JAAS file (propertyfile.jaas) similar to the following. In the file, you specify the authentication realm as Control Center (c3), and provide the name of password file that will contain the Control Center users and passwords.

   c3 {
       org.eclipse.jetty.jaas.spi.PropertyFileLoginModule required
       file="/path/to/password.properties";
   };
   

   Your password file in password.properties should look similar to the following, specifying a username followed by a password and that user’s group, either the administrative group or the restricted group.

   Note

   A user with membership in multiple groups is granted only the most restrictive permissions. For example, if a user is a member of two groups, admin and readonly, and readonly is a restricted role, then the user is granted only the rights for the readonly group.

   admin: <admin-password>,<administrator_group_name>
   bob: <bob-password>,<administrator_group_name>
   alice: <alice-password>,<your_restricted_group>
   

3. Start Control Center passing in an argument to use the JAAS configuration, and specify the properties file that contains the HTTP Basic authentication settings:

   CONTROL_CENTER_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=/path/to/propertyfile.jaas" \
   control-center-start ./etc/confluent-control-center/control-center.properties
   

When a user accesses Control Center, they are shown a dialog similar to the one that follows, which prompts them for sign-in credentials.

For this example, logging in as bob:<bob_password> provides read and write access. Logging in as alice:<alice_password> provides read-only access.

Restricted users

For users with restricted (read-only) roles, the following user interface (UI) features and options are unavailable/hidden:

• Upload Connect configs
• Browse connectors
• Add, delete, pause, or resume connectors
• View connectors settings
• Create, delete, or edit alerts (triggers or actions)
• Edit licenses
• Edit brokers
• Press submit on cluster forms
• Edit, create, or delete schemas
• Inspect topics
• Run or stop ksqlDB queries
• Type in the ksqlDB editor
• Add ksqlDB streams or tables

Control Center and other components

When HTTP Basic authentication is enabled on other Confluent Platform components, you must configure Control Center with a valid username and password for that component.

Basic authentication is enabled for Schema Registry

Whenever you have HTTP Basic authentication configured for Schema Registry, you must provide a username and password for Control Center to communicate correctly with Schema Registry. For a single cluster or the first cluster in a multi-cluster deployment, set the following properties, where the user.info contains a <username>:<password> that you have configured for Schema Registry.

confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.basic.auth.user.info=<sr-username>:<sr-password>

For multi-cluster deployment, to set the remaining clusters, use:

confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.<sr-cluster-name>.basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO
onfluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.<sr-cluster-name>.basic.auth.user.info=<sr-username>:<sr-password>

A multi-cluster deployment Schema Registry might look like the following:

// first Schema Registry cluster
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.url=<sr1-endpoint>
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.basic.auth.user.info=<sr1-username>:<sr1-password>

// additional Schema Registry clusters
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.<sr2-name>.url=<sr2-endpoint>
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.<sr2-name>.basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO
confluent.controlcenter.schema.registry.<sr2-name>.basic.auth.user.info=<sr2-username>:<sr2-password>

See Schema Registry for steps to configure HTTP Basic authentication for Schema Registry.

Basic Authentication is enabled for Connect

Whenever you have HTTP Basic authentication configured for Connect, you must provide a username and password for Control Center to communicate correctly with Connect. Set the confluent.controlcenter.connect.<connect-cluster-name>.basic.auth.user.info property to a value that contains <username>:<password> that you have configured for Connect.

confluent.controlcenter.connect.<connect1-name>.basic.auth.user.info=<connect-username>:<connect-password>

See Connect REST API for steps to configure HTTP Basic authentication for Connect.

Basic authentication is enabled for ksqlDB

Whenever you have HTTP Basic authentication configured for ksqlDB, you must provide a username and password for Control Center to communicate correctly with ksqlDB. Set the confluent.controlcenter.ksql.<ksql-cluster-name>.basic.auth.user.info property to a value that contains <username>:<password> that you have configured for ksqlDB.

confluent.controlcenter.ksql.ksql-cluster-name.basic.auth.user.info=<ksqal-username>:<ksql-password>

See ksqlDB for steps to configure HTTP Basic authentication for ksqlDB.