Configure Cassandra Authentication

• refer to official page

Configurate the authenticator option

• edit /etc/cassandra/cassandra.yaml

# search and the following setting
# default is AllowAllAuthenticator
authenticator: PasswordAuthenticator

Increase replication factor

• increase the replication factor to prevent the only one node (default node count is 1) going down, refer to more info

# login the cassendra service
$ cqlsh localhost

• one datacenter increases the replication factors

# NetworkTopologyStrategy is better for the future extension
cqlsh > ALTER KEYSPACE system_auth WITH REPLICATION =
  {'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 1 };

• multiple centers increase the replication factors

cqlsh > ALTER KEYSPACE system_auth WITH REPLICATION =
  {'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 2, 'datacenter2' : 3 };

after increase the replication factors, on each affected node, run nodetool repair

$ nodetool repair

start cqlsh and check replication factor of the system_auth

# login the cassandra service
$ cqlsh localhost

# check replication factor
cqlsh > describe system_auth;

# ...
# CREATE KEYSPACE system_auth WITH replication = { (replication info) }  AND durable_writes = true;
# ...

• restart the cassandra service

$ service cassandra restart

Create a new cqlsh user

# start and login cqlsh
$ cqlsh -u cassandra -p cassandra

# Create another superuser, not named cassandra.
# Three types of user creating as the following command
# CREATE USER spillman WITH PASSWORD 'Niner27';
# CREATE USER akers WITH PASSWORD 'Niner2' SUPERUSER;
# CREATE USER boone WITH PASSWORD 'Niner75' NOSUPERUSER;
cqlsh > CREATE USER spark WITH PASSWORD 'spark' SUPERUSER;

# modify the account cassandra password
cqlsh > alter user cassandra with password 'csdPWD';

# modify default cassandra superuser to nosuperuser
# by others superuser account
cqlsh > alter user cassandra nosuperuser;