[CASSANDRA-13428] Security: provide keystore_password_file and truststore_password_file options

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Normal
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: Feature/Encryption, Local/Config
• Assignee: Maulin Vasavada
• Reporter: Bas van Dijk

Authors

Maulin Vasavada

• Created: 08/Apr/17 13:07
• Updated: 04/Dec/24 17:44

Description

Currently passwords are stored in plaintext in the configuration file as in:

    server_encryption_options:
      keystore_password: secret
      truststore_password: secret
    client_encryption_options:
      keystore_password: secret

This has the disadvantage that, in order to protect the secrets, the whole configuration file needs to have restricted ownership and permissions. This is problematic in operating systems like NixOS where configuration files are usually stored in world-readable locations.

A secure option would be to store secrets in files (with restricted ownership and permissions) and reference those files from the unrestricted configuration file as in for example:

    server_encryption_options:
      keystore_password_file: /run/keys/keystore-password
      truststore_password_file: /run/keys/truststore-password
    client_encryption_options:
      keystore_password_file: /run/keys/keystore-password

This is trivial to implement and provides a big gain in security.

So in summary I'm proposing to add the keystore_password_file and truststore_password_file options besides the existing keystore_password and truststore_password options. The former will take precedence over the latter.

Issue Links

• relates to: CASSANDRA-18508 Make JMX SSL to be configured in cassandra.yaml