LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a common vendor-neutral and lightweight protocol for organizing authentication of network services. Integration with LDAP allows users to unify the company’s security policies when one user or entity can log in and authenticate against a variety of services. 

There is a lot of demand from our enterprise customers to be able to authenticate to their Apache Cassandra clusters against LDAP. As the leading NoSQL database, Cassandra is typically deployed across the enterprise and needs this connectivity.

Instaclustr has previously developed our LDAP plugin to work with the latest Cassandra releases. However, with Cassandra 4.0 right around the corner, it was due for an update to ensure compatibility. Instaclustr takes a great deal of care to provide cutting-edge features and integrations for our customers, and our new LDAP plugin for Cassandra 4.0 showcases this commitment. We always use open source and maintain a number of Apache 2.0-licensed tools, and have released our LDAP plugin under the Apache 2.0 license. 

Modular Architecture to Support All Versions of Cassandra

Previously, the implementations for Cassandra 2.0 and 3.0 lived in separate branches, which resulted in some duplicative code. With our new LDAP plugin update, everything lives in one branch and we have modularized the whole solution so it aligns with earlier Cassandra versions and Cassandra 4.0.

The modularization of our LDAP plugin means that there is the “base” module that all implementations are dependent on. If you look into the codebase on GitHub, you see that the implementation modules consist of one or two classes at maximum, with the rest inherited from the base module. 

This way of organizing the project is beneficial from a long-term maintenance perspective. We no longer need to keep track of all changes and apply them to the branched code for the LDAP plugin for each Cassandra version. When we implement changes and improvements to the base module, all modules are updated automatically and benefit.

Customizable for Any LDAP Implementation

This plugin offers a default authenticator implementation for connecting to a LDAP server and authenticating a user against it. It also offers a way to implement custom logic for specific use cases. In the module, we provide the most LDAP server-agnostic implementation possible, but there is also scope for customization to meet specific LDAP server nuances. 

If the default solution needs to be modified for a particular customer use case, it is possible to add in custom logic for that particular LDAP implementation. The implementation for customized connections is found in “LDAPPasswordRetriever” (DefaultLDAPServer being the default implementation from which one might extend and override appropriate methods). This is possible thanks to the SPI mechanism. If you need this functionality you can read more about it in the relevant section of our documentation.

Enhanced Testing for Reliability

Our GitHub build pipeline now tests the LDAP plugins for each supported Cassandra version on each merged commit. This update provides integration tests that will spin up a standalone Cassandra node as part of JUnit tests as well as a LDAP server. This is started in Docker as part of a Maven build before the actual JUnit tests. 

This testing framework enables us to test to make sure that any changes don’t break the authentication mechanism. This is achieved by actually logging in via the usual mechanism as well as via LDAP.

Packaged for Your Operating System

Last but not least, we have now added Debian and RPM packages with our plugin for each Cassandra version release. Until now, a user of this plugin had to install the JAR file to Cassandra libraries directory manually. With the introduction of these packages, you do not need to perform this manual action anymore. The plugin’s JAR along with the configuration file will be installed in the right place if the official Debian or RPM Cassandra package is installed too.

How to Configure LDAP for Cassandra

In this section we will walk you through the setup of the LDAP plugin and explain the most crucial parts of how the plugin works.

After placing the LDAP plugin JAR to Cassandra’s classpath—either by copying it over manually or by installing a package—you will need to modify a configuration file in /etc/cassandra/ldap.properties.

There are also changes that need to be applied to cassandra.yaml. For Cassandra 4.0, please be sure that your authenticator, authorizer, and role_manager are configured as follows:

Before using this plugin, an operator of a Cassandra cluster should configure system_auth keyspace to use NetworkTopologyStrategy.

How the LDAP Plugin Works With Cassandra Roles

LDAP plugin works via a “dual authentication” technique. If a user tries to log in with a role that already exists in Cassandra, separate from LDAP, it will authenticate against that role. However, if that role is not present in Cassandra, it will reach out to the LDAP server and it will try to authenticate against it. If it is successful, from the user’s point of view, it looks like this role was in Cassandra the whole time as it logs in the user transparently. 

If your LDAP server is down, you will not be able to authenticate with the specified LDAP user. You can enable caching for LDAP users—available in the Cassandra 3.0 or 4.0 plugins—to take some load off a LDAP server when authentication is conducted frequently.

The Bottom Line

Our LDAP plugin meets the enterprise need for a consolidated security and authentication policy. 100% open source and supporting all major versions of Cassandra, the plugin works with all major LDAP implementations and can be easily customized for others. 

The plugin is part of our suite of supported tools for our support customers and Instaclustr is committed to actively maintaining and developing the plugin. Our work updating it to support the upcoming Cassandra 4.0 release is part of this commitment. You can download it here and feel free to get in touch with any questions you might have. Cassandra 4.0 beta 2 is currently in preview on our managed platform and you can use our free trial to check it out.