==================== Enable Authorization

Authorization is the process by where users are granted permissions, which entitle them to access or change data on specific keyspaces, tables, or an entire datacenter. Authorization for ScyllaDB is done internally within ScyllaDB and is not done with a third party such as LDAP or OAuth. Granting permissions to users requires the use of a role such as Database Administrator and requires a user who has been :doc:authenticated </operating-scylla/security/authentication>.

Authorization is enabled using the authorizer setting in scylla.yaml. ScyllaDB has two authorizers available:

AllowAllAuthorizer (default setting) - which performs no checking and so effectively grants all permissions to all roles. This must be used if AllowAllAuthenticator is the configured :doc:authenticator </operating-scylla/security/authentication>.
CassandraAuthorizer - which implements permission management functionality and stores its data in ScyllaDB system tables.

.. note:: Once Authorization is enabled, all users must:

Have :ref:roles <roles> and permissions (set by a DBA with :ref:superuser <superuser> credentials) configured.
Use a user/password to :ref:connect <access> to ScyllaDB.

Enabling Authorization

Permissions are modeled as a whitelist, and as such, a given role has no access to any database resource, unless specified. The implication of this is that once authorization is enabled on a node, all requests will be rejected until the required permissions have been granted. For this reason, it is strongly recommended to perform the initial setup on a node that is not processing client requests.

The following assumes that Authentication has already been enabled via the process outlined in :doc:Enable Authentication </operating-scylla/security/authentication>. Perform these steps to enable internal authorization across the cluster:

Configure the authorizer_ as CassandraAuthorizer
Set your credentials as the superuser_
Login to cqlsh as the superuser and set roles_ and privileges for your users
Confirm users can access_ the client with their new credentials.

.. _authorizer:

Configure the Authorizer ........................

It is highly recommended to perform this action on a node that is not processing client requests.

Procedure

On the selected node, edit scylla.yaml to change the authorizer option to CassandraAuthorizer:

.. code-block:: yaml

authorizer: CassandraAuthorizer

Restart the node. This will set the authorization.

.. include:: /rst_include/scylla-commands-restart-index.rst

.. _superuser:

Create a Superuser .........................

There is no default superuser in ScyllaDB. You should create a superuser before creating additional roles. See :doc:Creating a Superuser </operating-scylla/security/create-superuser/> for instructions.

.. _roles:

Create Additional Roles .......................

In order for the users on your system to be able to login and perform actions, you as the DBA will have to create roles and privileges.

Before you Begin Validate you have set the authenticator as described in :doc:Authentication </operating-scylla/security/authentication>. Validate you have the credentials for the superuser for your system for yourself.

Open a new cqlsh session using the credentials of a role with superuser_ credentials. For example:

.. code-block:: none

cqlsh -u dba Password:

.. note::

Enter the password when prompted. The input is not displayed.

Configure the appropriate access privileges for clients using :ref:GRANT PERMISSION <grant-permission-statement> statements. For additional examples, consult the :doc:RBAC example </operating-scylla/security/rbac-usecase>.

In this example, you are creating a user (db_user) who can access with password (password). You are also granting db_user with the role named client who has SELECT permissions on the ks.t1 table.

.. code-block:: cql

CREATE ROLE db_user WITH PASSWORD = 'password' AND LOGIN = true; CREATE ROLE client; GRANT SELECT ON ks.t1 TO client; GRANT client TO db_user;

Continue in this manner to grant permissions for all users.

.. _access:

Clients Resume Access with New Permissions ..........................................

Restart ScyllaDB. As each node restarts and clients reconnect, the enforcement of the granted permissions will begin.

.. include:: /rst_include/scylla-commands-restart-index.rst

The following should be noted:

Clients are not able to connect until you setup roles as users with passwords using :ref:GRANT PERMISSION <grant-permission-statement> statements (using the superuser). Refer to the example in :doc:Role Based Access Control (RBAC) </operating-scylla/security/rbac-usecase> for details.
When initiating a connection, clients will need to use the user name and password that you assign

To remove permission from any role or user, see :ref:REVOKE PERMISSION <revoke-permission-statement>.

Additional References

:doc:Role Based Access Control (RBAC) </operating-scylla/security/rbac-usecase/>
:doc:Authorization </operating-scylla/security/authorization/> - CQL Reference for authorizing users
:doc:Authentication </operating-scylla/security/authentication/> - Enable Authentication