Security hardening guide¶

Authentication¶

Tarantool Enterprise supports password-based authentication and allows for two types of connections:

• via an administrative console and
• over a binary port for read and write operations and procedure invocation.

For more information on authentication and connection types, see the security section of the Tarantool manual.

In addition, Tarantool provides the following functionality:

• sessions – states which associate connections with users and make Tarantool API available to them after authentication,
• authentication triggers which execute actions on authentication events.
• third-party (external) authentication protocols and services such as LDAP or Active Directory – supported in the web interface, but unavailable on the binary-protocol level.

Access control¶

Tarantool Enterprise provides the means for administrators to prevent unauthorized access to the database and to certain functions.

Tarantool recognizes:

• different users (guests and administrators),
• privileges associated with users,
• roles (containers for privileges) granted to users;

And divides system space into:

• _user space to store usernames and hashed passwords for authentication,
• _priv space to store privileges for access control.

For more information, see the access control section of the Tarantool manual.

Users who create objects (spaces, indexes, users, roles, sequences, and functions) in the database become their owners and automatically acquire privileges for what they create. For more information, see the owners and privileges section of the Tarantool manual.

Audit log¶

Tarantool Enterprise has a built-in audit log that records events such as:

• authentication successes and failures;
• connection closures;
• creation, removal, enabling, and disabling of users;
• changes of passwords, privileges, and roles;
• denials of access to database objects;

Audit log contains:

• timestamps,
• usernames of users who performed actions,
• event types (e.g. user_create, user_enable, disconnect, etc),
• descriptions.

Audit log has two configuration parameters:

• audit_log = <PATH_TO_FILE> which is similar to the log parameter; it tells Tarantool to record audit events to a specific file;
• audit_nonblock which is similar to the log_nonblock parameter.

For more information on logging, see the following:

• logs section of the Tarantool manual,
• logging section of the configuration reference,
• appendix A in this document.

Access permissions to audit log files can be set up as to any other Unix file system object – via chmod.

Traffic encryption¶

Since version 2.10.0, Tarantool Enterprise has the built-in support for using SSL to encrypt the client-server communications over binary connections, that is, between Tarantool instances in a cluster or connecting to an instance via connectors using net.box.

Tarantool uses the OpenSSL library that is included in the delivery package. Please note that SSL connections use only TLSv1.2.

box.cfg{ listen = {
    uri = 'localhost:3301',
    params = {
        transport = 'ssl',
        ssl_key_file = '/path_to_key_file',
        ssl_cert_file = '/path_to_cert_file',
        ssl_ciphers = 'HIGH:!aNULL'
        ssl_password = 'topsecret'
    }
}}

box.cfg{ listen = {
    uri = 'localhost:3301',
    params = {
        transport = 'ssl',
        ssl_key_file = '/path_to_key_file',
        ssl_cert_file = '/path_to_cert_file',
        ssl_ciphers = 'GOST2012-GOST8912-GOST8912'
    }
}}

export TT_LISTEN="localhost:3301?transport=ssl&ssl_cert_file=/path_to_cert_file&ssl_key_file=/path_to_key_file"

Encrypting traffic¶

Since version 2.10.0, Tarantool Enterprise has the built-in support for using SSL to encrypt the client-server communications over binary connections, that is, between Tarantool instances in a cluster. For details on enabling SSL encryption, see the Traffic encryption section of this guide.

In case the built-in encryption is not set for particular connections, consider the following security recommendations:

• setting up connection tunneling, or
• encrypting the actual data stored in the database.

For more information on data encryption, see the crypto module reference.

The HTTP server module provided by rocks does not support the HTTPS protocol. To set up a secure connection for a client (e.g., REST service), consider hiding the Tarantool instance (router if it is a cluster of instances) behind an Nginx server and setting up an SSL certificate for it.

To make sure that no information can be intercepted ‘from the wild’, run Nginx on the same physical server as the instance and set up their communication over a Unix socket. For more information, see the socket module reference.

Firewall configuration¶

To protect the cluster from any unwanted network activity ‘from the wild’, configure the firewall on each server to allow traffic on ports listed in network requirements.

If you are using static IP addresses, whitelist them, again, on each server as the cluster has a full mesh network topology. Consider blacklisting all the other addresses on all servers except the router (running behind the Nginx server).

Tarantool Enterprise does not provide defense against DoS or DDoS attacks. Consider using third-party software instead.

Data integrity¶

Tarantool Enterprise does not keep checksums or provide the means to control data integrity. However, it ensures data persistence using a write ahead log, regularly snapshots the entire data set to disk, and checks the data format whenever it reads the data back from the disk. For more information, see the data persistence section of the Tarantool manual.