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new a0fb0de CASSANDRA-17373: February 2022 blog "Tightening Security for
Apache Cassandra Part: 3"
a0fb0de is described below
commit a0fb0de12c70b2a4b2b27ca1196ae9598aa45db0
Author: Diogenese Topper <diotop...@gmail.com>
AuthorDate: Thu Feb 10 19:00:05 2022 -0800
CASSANDRA-17373: February 2022 blog "Tightening Security for Apache
Cassandra Part: 3"
patch by Maulin Vasavada, Diogenese Topper; review by Erick Ramirez
Add blog post titled "Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra Part: 3"
update blog index
add 2 images for blog: "Cassandra-SslContextFactory.png" and
"tightening-security-for-apache-cassandra-p3-unsplash-jennefer-zacarias.jpg"
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site-content/source/modules/ROOT/pages/blog.adoc | 24 +++++
...ening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-3.adoc | 97 +++++++++++++++++++++
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@@ -14,6 +14,30 @@ NOTES FOR CONTENT CREATORS
[openblock,card-header]
------
[discrete]
+=== Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra: Part 3
+[discrete]
+==== February 14, 2022
+------
+[openblock,card-content]
+------
+In Part 3 of Maulin Vasavada’s mini-series on improving security, we detail
how Cassandra 4.0 delivers ways to customize mTLS/TLS configuration while
retaining the hot-reload functionality.
+
+[openblock,card-btn card-btn--blog]
+--------
+[.btn.btn--alt]
+xref:blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-3.adoc[Read More]
+--------
+
+------
+----
+//end card
+
+//start card
+[openblock,card shadow relative test]
+----
+[openblock,card-header]
+------
+[discrete]
=== Apache Cassandra Changelog #12
[discrete]
==== February 10, 2022
diff --git
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@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+= Tightening security for Apache Cassandra: Part 3
+:page-layout: single-post
+:page-role: blog-post
+:page-post-date: February, 14 2022
+:page-post-author: Maulin Vasavada
+:description: The Apache Cassandra Community
+:keywords:
+
+:!figure-caption:
+
+.Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@zenchic[Jennefer Zacarias^]
+image::blog/tightening-security-for-apache-cassandra-p3-unsplash-jennefer-zacarias.jpg[3-4]
+
+In xref:blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-2.adoc[Part-2] of
this series, we explored avenues for securing data in transit and described how
to configure TLS/mTLS with Apache Cassandra 4.0. In Part 3, we’ll look at how
you can customize TLS/mTLS for Apache Cassandra 4.0+ to overcome the challenges
with a TLS configuration.
+
+=== How We Made TLS Configuration Better With 4.0
+
+With Apache Cassandra 4.0,
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CASSANDRA/CEP-9%3A+Make+SSLContext+creation+pluggable[we
enhanced^] the TLS/mTLS configuration to allow for specifying custom ways to
build SSLContext and we provided a default implementation for backward
compatibility. We introduced a new configuration, `ssl_context_factory`, where
you can specify your custom class to build SSLContext objects required by
Java/Netty SSL libraries. You can also add custom properties to [...]
+
+To demonstrate this customization, let’s use the example of Kubernetes, the
popular cloud-native solution. Kubernetes allows configuring
https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/secret/[Secrets^] to store
sensitive data. We could potentially use K8s Secrets to store the keystore and
truststore artifacts along with their respective passwords. We will assume
Apache Cassandra is already running in a K8s environment.
+
+=== Integration with Kubernetes Secrets
+
+We have passwords for keystore and truststore as K8s environment variables
loaded from the K8s Secrets. The keystore and truststore files are loaded by
the K8s Secrets. The YAML file, below, for the pod reflects these settings.
This example also keeps the hot-reloading capability of security credentials by
allowing the secret named `keystore/truststore-last-updatedtime`. You can
update the timestamp value for those secrets via a `kubectl` command and the
implementation will hot-reload th [...]
+
+==== Example K8s Pod Configuration
+
+```
+apiVersion: v1
+ kind: Pod
+ metadata:
+ name: my-cassandra-pod
+ labels:
+ app: my-cassandra-app
+ spec:
+ containers:
+ - name: my-cassandra-app
+ image: my-cassandrda-app:latest
+ imagePullPolicy: Always
+ env:
+ - name: KEYSTORE_PASSWORD
+ valueFrom:
+ secretKeyRef:
+ name: my-ssl-store
+ key: keystore-password
+ - name: TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD
+ valueFrom:
+ secretKeyRef:
+ name: my-ssl-store
+ key: truststore-password
+ volumeMounts:
+ - name: my-ssl-store
+ mountPath: "/etc/my-ssl-store"
+ readOnly: true
+ volumes:
+ - name: my-ssl-store
+ secret:
+ secretName: my-ssl-store
+ items:
+ - key: cassandra_ssl_keystore
+ path: keystore
+ - key: keystore-last-updatedtime
+ path: keystore-last-updatedtime
+ - key: cassandra_ssl_truststore
+ path: truststore
+ - key: truststore-last-updatedtime
+ path: truststore-last-updatedtime
+```
+
+We will use the
https://github.com/apache/cassandra/blob/trunk/examples/ssl-factory/src/org/apache/cassandra/security/KubernetesSecretsSslContextFactory.java[‘KubernetesSecretsSslContextFactory’^]
class from Apache Cassandra 4.0 as an example for how to customize the TLS
configuration via Kubernetes Secrets as loaded by the pod definition (above).
+
+==== Example Custom TLS Configuration for K8s Secrets
+
+Here we have used the configuration for `server_encryption_options`, but,
similarly, you can use it for the `client_encryption_options`:
+
+```
+ server_encryption_options:
+ internode_encryption: none
+ ssl_context_factory:
+ class_name:
`org.apache.cassandra.security.KubernetesSecretsSslContextFactory
+ parameters:
+ KEYSTORE_PASSWORD_ENV_VAR: KEYSTORE_PASSWORD
+ KEYSTORE_UPDATED_TIMESTAMP_PATH:
/etc/my-ssl-store/keystore-last-updatedtime
+ TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD_ENV_VAR: TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD
+ TRUSTSTORE_UPDATED_TIMESTAMP_PATH:
/etc/my-ssl-store/truststore-last-updatedtime
+ keystore: /etc/my-ssl-store/keystore
+ truststore: /etc/my-ssl-store/truststore
+```
+
+And Voila! Congratulations, your Apache Cassandra server is now integrated
with the Kubernetes Secrets for the TLS configuration. The example above is
built on the extensible class hierarchy shown, below. You can build extensions
at three different levels and use composition to offer hybrid solutions you
might need.
+
+image::blog/Cassandra-SslContextFactory.png[A diagram of Apache Cassandra’s
extensible class hierarchy]
+
+=== Future work
+On top of having the ability to customize TLS configuration, the community is
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-17031[working on^] supporting
other popular formats for security credentials, such as
https://www.ssl.com/guide/pem-der-crt-and-cer-x-509-encodings-and-conversions/[PEM^]
(originally “**P**rivacy **E**nhanced **M**ail”).
+
+As the Apache Cassandra community, our goal is to provide best-in-class
software and keep enhancing it as the use-cases and requirements grow and
evolve over time. I hope this particular enhancement makes Cassandra operators’
life easier while supporting industry standards for data security.
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