Cassandra database plugin HTTP API

The Cassandra database plugin is one of the supported plugins for the database secrets engine. This plugin generates database credentials dynamically based on configured roles for the Cassandra database.

Configure connection

In addition to the parameters defined by the Database Secrets Engine, this plugin has a number of parameters to further configure a connection.

Parameters

• hosts (string: <required>) – Specifies a set of comma-delineated Cassandra hosts to connect to.

• port (int: 9042) – Specifies the default port to use if none is provided as part of the host URI. Defaults to Cassandra's default transport port, 9042.

• username (string: <required>) – Specifies the username to use for superuser access.

• password (string: <required>) – Specifies the password corresponding to the given username.

• tls (bool: true) – Specifies whether to use TLS when connecting to Cassandra.

• insecure_tls (bool: false) – Specifies whether to skip verification of the server certificate when using TLS.

• tls_server_name (string: "") – Specifies the name to use as the SNI host when connecting to the Cassandra server via TLS.

• pem_bundle (string: "") – Specifies concatenated PEM blocks containing a certificate and private key; a certificate, private key, and issuing CA certificate; or just a CA certificate. Only one of pem_bundle or pem_json can be specified.

• pem_json (string: "") – Specifies JSON containing a certificate and private key; a certificate, private key, and issuing CA certificate; or just a CA certificate. The value in this field must be an encoded JSON object. For convenience format is the same as the output of the issue command from the pki secrets engine; see the pki documentation. Only one of pem_bundle or pem_json can be specified.

{
  "certificate": "<client certificate as a PEM>",
  "private_key": "<private key as a PEM>",
  "ca_chain": ["<CA as a PEM>", "<Additional PEM for the CA chain if needed"]
}

vault write database/config/cassandra-example <...other fields> pem_json=@/path/to/file.json

• skip_verification (bool: false) - Skip permissions checks when a connection to Cassandra is first created. These checks ensure that Vault is able to create roles, but can be resource intensive in clusters with many roles.

• protocol_version (int: 2) – Specifies the CQL protocol version to use.

• connect_timeout (string: "5s") – Specifies the timeout to use, both for connections and in general.

• local_datacenter (string: "") – If set, enables host selection policy which will prioritize and use hosts which are in the local datacenter before hosts in all other datacenters (for example dc-01).

• socket_keep_alive (string: "0s") – the keep-alive period for an active network connection. If zero, keep-alives are not enabled.

• consistency (string: "") – Specifies the consistency option to use. See the gocql definition for valid options.

• username_template (string) - Template describing how dynamic usernames are generated.

{{ printf "v_%s_%s_%s_%s" (.DisplayName | truncate 15) (.RoleName | truncate 15) (random 20) (unix_time) | truncate 100 | replace "-" "_" | lowercase }}

TLS works as follows:

• If tls is set to true, the connection will use TLS; this happens automatically if pem_bundle, pem_json, or insecure_tls is set

• If insecure_tls is set to true, the connection will not perform verification of the server certificate; this also sets tls to true

• If only issuing_ca is set in pem_json, or the only certificate in pem_bundle is a CA certificate, the given CA certificate will be used for server certificate verification; otherwise the system CA certificates will be used

• If certificate and private_key are set in pem_bundle or pem_json, client auth will be turned on for the connection

pem_bundle should be a PEM-concatenated bundle of a private key + client certificate, an issuing CA certificate, or both. pem_json should contain the same information; for convenience, the JSON format is the same as that output by the issue command from the PKI secrets engine.

Sample payload

{
  "plugin_name": "cassandra-database-plugin",
  "allowed_roles": "readonly",
  "hosts": "cassandra1.local",
  "username": "user",
  "password": "pass"
}

Sample request

$ curl \
    --header "X-Vault-Token: ..." \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    http://127.0.0.1:8200/v1/cassandra/config/connection

Statements

Statements are configured during role creation and are used by the plugin to determine what is sent to the database on user creation, renewing, and revocation. For more information on configuring roles see the Role API in the database secrets engine docs.

Parameters

The following are the statements used by this plugin. If not mentioned in this list the plugin does not support that statement type.

• creation_statements (list: []) – Specifies the database statements executed to create and configure a user. Must be a semicolon-separated string, a base64-encoded semicolon-separated string, a serialized JSON string array, or a base64-encoded serialized JSON string array. The {{username}} and {{password}} values will be substituted. If not provided, defaults to a generic create user statements that creates a non-superuser.

• revocation_statements (list: []) – Specifies the database statements to be executed to revoke a user. Must be a semicolon-separated string, a base64-encoded semicolon-separated string, a serialized JSON string array, or a base64-encoded serialized JSON string array. The {{username}} value will be substituted. If not provided defaults to a generic drop user statement.

• rollback_statements (list: []) – Specifies the database statements to be executed to rollback a create operation in the event of an error. Must be a semicolon-separated string, a base64-encoded semicolon-separated string, a serialized JSON string array, or a base64-encoded serialized JSON string array. The {{username}} value will be substituted. If not provided, defaults to a generic drop user statement

• root_rotation_statements (list: []) - Specifies the database statements to be executed when rotating the root user's password. Must be a semicolon-separated string, a base64-encoded semicolon-separated string, a serialized JSON string array, or a base64-encoded serialized JSON string array. The {{username}} value will be substituted. If not provided, defaults to a reasonable default alter user statement.

ALTER USER '{{username}}' WITH PASSWORD '{{password}}';