layout: docs title: Security sidebar_title: Security permalink: /docs/security.html auth_types:
Security is an important topic between clients and the Avatica server. Most JDBC drivers and databases implement some level of authentication and authorization for limit what actions clients are allowed to perform.
Similarly, Avatica must limit what users are allowed to connect and interact with the server. Avatica must primarily deal with authentication while authorization is deferred to the underlying database. By default, Avatica provides no authentication. Avatica does have the ability to perform client authentication using Kerberos, HTTP Basic, and HTTP Digest.
The authentication and authorization provided by Avatica are designed for use instead of the authentication and authorization provided by the underlying database. The typical user and password JDBC properties are always passed through to the Avatica server which will cause the server to enforce those credentials. As such, Avatica‘s authentication types mentioned here only have relevance when the underlying database’s authentication and authorization features are not used. (The Kerberos/SPNEGO integration is one difference as the impersonation feature is specifically designed to allow the Kerberos identity to be passed to the database - new advanced implementations could also follow this same approach if desired).
Avatica supports authentication over HTTP Basic. This is simple username-password based authentication which is ultimately insecure when operating over an untrusted network. Basic authentication is only secure when the transport is encrypted (e.g. TLS) as the credentials are passed in the clear. This authentication is supplementary to the provided JDBC authentication. If credentials are passed to the database already, this authentication is unnecessary.
{% highlight java %} String propertiesFile = “/path/to/jetty-users.properties”; // All roles allowed String[] allowedRoles = new String[] {“*”}; // Only specific roles are allowed allowedRoles = new String[] { “users”, “admins” }; HttpServer server = new HttpServer.Builder() .withPort(8765) .withHandler(new LocalService(), Driver.Serialization.PROTOBUF) .withBasicAuthentication(propertiesFile, allowedRoles) .build(); {% endhighlight %}
The properties file must be in a form consumable by Jetty. Each line in this file is of the form: username: password[,rolename ...]
For example:
{% highlight properties %} bob: b0b5pA55w0rd,users steve: 5teve5pA55w0rd,users alice: Al1cepA55w0rd,admins {% endhighlight %}
Passwords can also be obfuscated as MD5 hashes or oneway cryptography (“CRYPT”). For more information, see the official Jetty documentation.
Avatica also supports HTTP Digest. This is desirable for Avatica as it does not require the use of TLS to secure communication between the Avatica client and server. It is configured very similarly to HTTP Basic authentication. This authentication is supplementary to the provided JDBC authentication. If credentials are passed to the database already, this authentication is unnecessary.
{% highlight java %} String propertiesFile = “/path/to/jetty-users.properties”; // All roles allowed String[] allowedRoles = new String[] {“*”}; // Only specific roles are allowed allowedRoles = new String[] { “users”, “admins” }; HttpServer server = new HttpServer.Builder() .withPort(8765) .withHandler(new LocalService(), Driver.Serialization.PROTOBUF) .withDigestAuthentication(propertiesFile, allowedRoles) .build(); {% endhighlight %}
The properties file must be in a form consumable by Jetty. Each line in this file is of the form: username: password[,rolename ...]
For example:
{% highlight properties %} bob: b0b5pA55w0rd,users steve: 5teve5pA55w0rd,users alice: Al1cepA55w0rd,admins {% endhighlight %}
Passwords can also be obfuscated as MD5 hashes or oneway cryptography (“CRYPT”). For more information, see the official Jetty documentation.
Because Avatica operates over an HTTP interface, the simple and protected GSSAPI negotiation mechanism (SPNEGO) is a logical choice. This mechanism makes use of the “HTTP Negotiate” authentication extension to communicate with the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) to authenticate a client.
The Avatica server can operate either by performing the login using a JAAS configuration file or login programmatically. By default, authenticated clients will have queries executed as the Avatica server's kerberos user. Impersonation is the feature which enables actions to be run in the server as the actual end-user.
As a note, it is required that the Kerberos principal in use by the Avatica server must have an primary of HTTP (where Kerberos principals are of the form primary[/instance]@REALM). This is specified by RFC-4559.
This approach requires no external file configurations and only requires a keytab file for the principal.
{% highlight java %} HttpServer server = new HttpServer.Builder() .withPort(8765) .withHandler(new LocalService(), Driver.Serialization.PROTOBUF) .withSpnego(“HTTP/host.domain.com@DOMAIN.COM”) .withAutomaticLogin( new File(“/etc/security/keytabs/avatica.spnego.keytab”)) .build(); {% endhighlight %}
A JAAS configuration file can be set via the system property java.security.auth.login.config. The user must set this property when launching their Java application invoking the Avatica server. The presence of this file will automatically perform login as necessary in the first use of the Avatica server. The invocation is nearly the same as the programmatic login.
{% highlight java %} HttpServer server = new HttpServer.Builder() .withPort(8765) .withHandler(new LocalService(), Driver.Serialization.PROTOBUF) .withSpnego(“HTTP/host.domain.com@DOMAIN.COM”) .build(); {% endhighlight %}
The contents of the JAAS configuration file are very specific:
{% highlight java %} com.sun.security.jgss.accept { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required storeKey=true useKeyTab=true keyTab=/etc/security/keytabs/avatica.spnego.keyTab principal=HTTP/host.domain.com@DOMAIN.COM; }; {% endhighlight %}
Ensure the keyTab and principal attributes are set correctly for your system.
Impersonation is a feature of the Avatica server which allows the Avatica clients to execute the server-side calls (e.g. the underlying JDBC calls). Because the details on what it means to execute such an operation are dependent on the actual system, a callback is exposed for downstream integrators to implement.
For example, the following is an example for creating an Apache Hadoop UserGroupInformation “proxy user”. This example takes a UserGroupInformation object representing the Avatica server‘s identity, creates a “proxy user” with the client’s username, and performs the action as that client but using the server's identity.
{% highlight java %} public class PhoenixDoAsCallback implements DoAsRemoteUserCallback { private final UserGroupInformation serverUgi;
public PhoenixDoAsCallback(UserGroupInformation serverUgi) { this.serverUgi = Objects.requireNonNull(serverUgi); }
@Override public T doAsRemoteUser(String remoteUserName, String remoteAddress, final Callable action) throws Exception { // Proxy this user on top of the server's user (the real user) UserGroupInformation proxyUser = UserGroupInformation.createProxyUser(remoteUserName, serverUgi);
// Check if this user is allowed to be impersonated.
// Will throw AuthorizationException if the impersonation as this user is not allowed
ProxyUsers.authorize(proxyUser, remoteAddress);
// Execute the actual call as this proxy user
return proxyUser.doAs(new PrivilegedExceptionAction<T>() {
@Override
public T run() throws Exception {
return action.call();
}
});
} } {% endhighlight %}
In some cases, it may be desirable to execute some queries on behalf of another user. For example, Apache Knox has a gateway service which can act as a proxy for all requests to the backend Avatica server. In this case, we don't want to run the queries as the Knox user, instead the real user communicating with Knox.
There are presently two options to extract the “real” user from HTTP requests:
org.apache.calcite.avatica.server.HttpRequestRemoteUserExtractor (default)org.apache.calcite.avatica.server.HttpQueryStringParameterRemoteUserExtractor (e.g “doAs”)Implementations of Avatica can configure this using the AvaticaServerConfiguration and providing an implementation of RemoteUserExtractor. There are two implementations provided as listed above.
{% highlight java %} config = new AvaticaServerConfiguration() { /* ... / @Override public RemoteUserExtractor getRemoteUserExtractor() { // We extract the “real” user via the “doAs” query string parameter return new HttpQueryStringParameterRemoteUserExtractor(“doAs”); } / ... */ }; {% endhighlight %}
Avatica server allows users to plugin their Custom Authentication mechanism through the HTTPServer Builder. This is useful if users want to combine features of various authentication types. Examples include combining basic authentication with impersonation or adding mutual authentication with impersonation. More Examples are available in CustomAuthHttpServerTest class.
Note: Users need to configure their own ServerConnectors and Handlers with the help of ServerCustomizers.
{% highlight java %} AvaticaServerConfiguration configuration = new ExampleAvaticaServerConfiguration(); HttpServer server = new HttpServer.Builder() .withCustomAuthentication(configuration) .withPort(8765) .build(); {% endhighlight %}
Many HTTP client libraries, such as Apache Commons HttpComponents, already have support for performing Basic, Digest, and SPNEGO authentication. When in doubt, refer to one of these implementations as it is likely correct.
For information on building SPNEGO support by hand, consult RFC-4559 which describes how the authentication handshake, through use of the “WWW-authenticate=Negotiate” HTTP header, is used to authenticate a client.
For both HTTP Basic and Digest authentication, the avatica_user and avatica_password properties are used to identify the client with the server. If the underlying database (the JDBC driver inside the Avatica server) require their own user and password combination, these are set via the traditional “user” and “password” properties in the Avatica JDBC driver. This also implies that adding HTTP-level authentication in Avatica is likely superfluous.