[CASSANDRA-10594] Inconsistent permissions results return

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Low
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: Feature/Authorization
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Adam Holmberg
• Created: 26/Oct/15 18:37
• Updated: 16/Apr/19 09:30

Description

The server returns inconsistent results when listing permissions, depending on whether a user is configured.

Observed with Cassandra 3.0:

Only super user configured:

cassandra@cqlsh> list all;

 role | resource | permissions
------+----------+-------------

(0 rows)

VOID result type is returned (meaning no result meta is returned and cqlsh must use the table meta to determine columns)

With one user configured, no grants:

cassandra@cqlsh> create user holmberg with password 'tmp';
cassandra@cqlsh> list all;
results meta: system_auth permissions 4

 role      | username  | resource    | permission
-----------+-----------+-------------+------------
 cassandra | cassandra | <role holmberg> |      ALTER
 cassandra | cassandra | <role holmberg> |       DROP
 cassandra | cassandra | <role holmberg> |  AUTHORIZE

(3 rows)

Now a ROWS result message is returned with the cassandra super user grants.

Dropping the regular user causes the VOID message to be returned again.

Slightly different behavior on 2.2 branch: VOID message with no result meta is returned, even if regular user is configured, until permissions are added to that user.

Expected:
It would be nice if the query always resulted in a ROWS result, even if there are no explicit permissions defined. This would provide the correct result metadata even if there are no rows.
Additionally, it is strange that the 'cassandra' super user only appears in the results when another user is configured. I would expect it to always appear, or never.