Project: YugabyteDB (App Definition and Development / Database)
File: authentication-ycql.md

title: Enable users in YCQL headerTitle: Enable users in YCQL description: Enable users in YCQL. aliases: /preview/secure/enable-authentication/ycql/ menu: preview: name: Enable users identifier: enable-authentication-2-ycql parent: enable-authentication weight: 715 type: docs {{<api-tabs>}} YCQL authentication is based on roles. Roles can be created with superuser, non-superuser, and login privileges. New roles can be created, and existing ones altered or dropped by administrators using YCQL commands. To enable YCQL authentication in your local YugabyteDB clusters, add the flag with the `yugabyted start` command, as follows: ```sh $ ./bin/yugabyted start --usecassandraauthentication=true ``` To enable YCQL authentication in deployable YugabyteDB clusters, start the `yb-tserver` processes with the flag. Your command should look similar to the following: ```sh ./bin/yb-tserver \ --tservermasteraddrs <master addresses> \ --fsdatadirs <data directories> \ --usecassandraauthentication=true \ >& /home/centos/disk1/yb-tserver.out & ``` You can read more about bringing up the YB-TServers for a deployment in the section on . A new YugabyteDB cluster with authentication enabled comes up with a default admin user, the default username/password for this admin user is `cassandra`/`cassandra`. Note that this default user has `SUPERUSER` privilege. You can connect to this cluster using `ycqlsh` as follows: ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u cassandra -p cassandra ``` You should see the cluster connect and the following prompt: ```output Connected to local cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042. [ycqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.9-SNAPSHOT | CQL spec 3.4.2 | Native protocol v4] Use HELP for help. cassandra@ycqlsh> ``` Use the to create a new role. Users are roles that have the `LOGIN` privilege granted to them. Roles created with the `SUPERUSER` option in addition to the `LOGIN` option have full access to the database. Superusers can run all the YCQL commands on any of the database resources. Note that by default, creating a role does not grant the `LOGIN` or the `SUPERUSER` privileges, these need to be explicitly granted. For example, to create a regular user `john` with the password `PasswdForJohn` and grant login privileges, run the following command. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> CREATE ROLE IF NOT EXISTS john WITH PASSWORD = 'PasswdForJohn' AND LOGIN = true; ``` If the role `john` already existed, the above statement will not error out as you have added the `IF NOT EXISTS` clause. To verify the user account just created, run the following query: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles; ``` You should see the following output. ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of --+--+--+-- john | True | False | [] cassandra | True | True | [] (2 rows) ``` The `SUPERUSER` status should be given only to a limited number of

Applications should generally not access the database using an account that has the superuser privilege. Only a role with the `SUPERUSER` privilege can create a new role with the `SUPERUSER` privilege, or grant it to an existing role. To create a superuser `admin` with the `LOGIN` privilege, run the following command using a superuser account: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> CREATE ROLE admin WITH PASSWORD = 'PasswdForAdmin' AND LOGIN = true AND SUPERUSER = true; ``` To verify the admin account just created, run the following query. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles; ``` You should see the following output. ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of --+--+--+-- admin | True | True | [] john | True | False | [] cassandra | True | True | [] (3 rows) ``` Superusers can alter the passwords of other users including the admin user. However, if you have lost or forgotten the password of the only superuser, you can reset the password. To do this, you need to set the YB-TServer flag to true. To enable the password reset feature, you must first set the flag to false. For example, to reset the password for the admin superuser created in , do the following: Set `usecassandraauthentication` to `false` and `ycqlallownonauthenticatedpassword_reset` to `true` as follows: ```sh ./bin/yb-tserver \ --tservermasteraddrs <master addresses> \ --usecassandraauthentication=false \ --ycqlallownonauthenticatedpassword_reset=true ``` Change the password using `ycqlsh` as follows: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE admin WITH PASSWORD = <updatedPassword> ``` Set `usecassandraauthentication` to `true` and `ycqlallownonauthenticatedpassword_reset` to `false` as follows: ```sh ./bin/yb-tserver \ --tservermasteraddrs <master addresses> \ --usecassandraauthentication=true \ --ycqlallownonauthenticatedpassword_reset=false ``` Log in to `ycqlsh` with the updated password as follows: ```sh ./bin/ycqlsh -u admin -p <updatedPassword> ``` You can connect to a YCQL cluster with authentication enabled as follows: ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u <username> -p <password> ``` Alternatively, you can omit the `-p <password>` above and you will be prompted for a password. As an example of connecting as a user, you can log in with the credentials of the user `john` that you created above by running the following command and entering the password when prompted: ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u john ``` As an example of connecting as the `admin` user, you can run the following command. ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u admin -p PasswdForAdmin ``` You can edit existing user accounts using the statement. Note that the role making these changes should have sufficient privileges to modify the target role. To change the password for `john` above, you can do: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE john WITH PASSWORD = 'new-password'; ``` In the example above, you can verify that `john` is not a superuser: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM

WHERE role='john'; ``` ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of +--+--+-- john | True | False | [] (1 rows) ``` To grant superuser privileges to `john`, run the following command. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE john WITH SUPERUSER = true; ``` We can now verify that john is now a superuser. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles WHERE role='john'; ``` ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of +--+--+-- john | True | True | [] (1 rows) ``` Similarly, you can revoke superuser privileges by running: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE john WITH SUPERUSER = false; ``` In the example above, you can verify that `john` can log in to the database by doing the following: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles WHERE role='john'; ``` ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of +--+--+-- john | True | False | [] (1 rows) ``` To disable login privileges for `john`, run the following command. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE john WITH LOGIN = false; ``` You can verify this as follows. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles WHERE role='john'; ``` ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of +--+--+-- john | False | False | [] (1 rows) ``` Trying to log in as `john` using `ycqlsh` will throw the following error. ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u john Password: Connection error: ... message="john is not permitted to log in" ``` To re-enable login privileges for `john`, run the following command. ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE john WITH LOGIN = true; ``` It is highly recommended to change at least the default password for the superuser in real world deployments to keep the database cluster secure. For example, to change the `cassandra` user password from `cassandra` to `new_password`, do the following: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> ALTER ROLE cassandra WITH PASSWORD = 'new_password'; ``` Connecting to the cluster with the default password no longer works: ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u cassandra -p cassandra ``` ```output Connection error: ... Provided username 'cassandra' and/or password are incorrect ... ``` You can now connect to the cluster using the new password: ```sh $ ./bin/ycqlsh -u cassandra -p new_password ``` You can delete a user with the command. For example, to drop the user `john` in the above example, run the following command as a superuser: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> DROP ROLE IF EXISTS john; ``` You can verify that the `john` role was dropped as follows: ```cql cassandra@ycqlsh> SELECT role, canlogin, issuperuser, memberof FROM systemauth.roles; ``` ```output role | canlogin | issuperuser | member_of --+--+--+-- admin | True | True | [] cassandra | True | True | [] (2 rows) ```