Kerberos Cloudera

Kerberos is a widely-used authentication protocol that provides strong security for authentication in a distributed computing environment, and it is commonly used with Hadoop clusters, including those managed by Cloudera. When implementing Kerberos security in a Cloudera-managed Hadoop cluster, several steps are involved:

1. Kerberos Setup:

   • Install and configure a Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC), which is a centralized authentication server. This can be done using MIT Kerberos or Active Directory, depending on your organization’s setup.

2. Principle and Keytab Creation:

   • Create Kerberos principals and keytabs for each Hadoop service, including HDFS, YARN, Hive, HBase, etc. These principles and keytabs will be used for authenticating and securing communications between cluster components.

3. Configure Hadoop Services:

   • Update the configuration of each Hadoop service to enable Kerberos security. You’ll need to specify the Kerberos realm, KDC, and principal/keytab information in the relevant configuration files (e.g., core-site.xml, hdfs-site.xml, yarn-site.xml, hive-site.xml, etc.).

4. Secure Communication:

   • Ensure that all inter-service and client-to-service communications within the Hadoop cluster are encrypted and authenticated using Kerberos. This includes data transfers, resource management, and service-to-service communication.

5. Secure Client Access:

   • Configure Kerberos authentication for clients that interact with the Hadoop cluster. This includes ensuring that client machines have the necessary Kerberos client libraries installed and that users have valid Kerberos tickets.

6. User Authentication:

   • Users accessing the Hadoop cluster will need to authenticate using their Kerberos credentials. Typically, this involves obtaining a Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT) from the KDC.

7. Authorization and Access Control:

   • Implement fine-grained access control using tools like Cloudera Sentry or Apache Ranger in conjunction with Kerberos authentication. This ensures that only authorized users can access specific data and perform certain actions within the cluster.

8. Monitoring and Logging:

   • Set up monitoring and auditing of Kerberos authentication and authorization events to detect and respond to any security incidents.

9. Testing and Validation:

   • Thoroughly test the Kerberos setup by ensuring that all services start without issues and that users can successfully authenticate and access the cluster resources.

10. Documentation and Training:

    • Document the Kerberos configuration and security policies, and provide training to administrators and users on how to work within the secure cluster environment.

11. Backup and Recovery:

    • Implement backup and recovery procedures for the Kerberos KDC and keytab files to ensure that security can be maintained in the event of a failure.