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SingleStoreDB v8.1

Authenticate via JWT

A JSON Web Token (JWT) is an open, industry standard (RFC 7519) that defines a compact and self-contained method for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object, which can be verified and trusted as it is digitally signed.

JWTs are useful for both authorization (the most common scenario for using a JWTs) and information exchange (where information can be securely transmitted between parties). SingleStoreDB supports using JWTs for authentication. Refer to JWT.io for more information.

Use JWTs with the SingleStore and MySQL Clients

To use a JWT with the SingleStore client, replace the password with the JWT:

singlestore -u $EMAIL_ADDRESS -h $CLUSTER_HOSTNAME -P $CLUSTER_PORT --password=$JWT --ssl=TRUE --enable-cleartext-plugin

Similarly, to use a JWT with the MySQL client, replace the password with the JWT.

mysql -u $EMAIL_ADDRESS -h $CLUSTER_HOSTNAME -P $CLUSTER_PORT --password=$JWT --ssl=TRUE

Note

SingleStoreDB also supports JWT-based authentication with the SingleStore JDBC driver, the SingleStore ODBC driver, and client libraries that support cleartext (provided cleartext is enabled).

About JWT Users

For the purposes of this document, a "JWT user" is a user that can authenticate with a JWT when connecting to a SingleStoreDB cluster.

For authenticating to SingleStoreDB with a JWT:

  • Clusters are configured to accept JWTs using JSON Web Key Sets (JWKS) or with the static jwt-config file. With JWKS, JWTs are matched to JSON Web Keys (JWKs) to validate the JWT. The JWK and JWT together specify the database username to use. With the static jwt-config file, JWTs are matched to keys based on the alg in the JWT. Both JWKS and jwt-config can be used at the same time. When they’re used together, JWTs are matched against JWKS first and will only be matched against the jwt-config file if there is no match to any JWK.

Validate JWTs with JWKS

You can use JSON Web Key Sets (JWKS) to validate the signature of a signed JWT. JWKS are a set of keys which contain public keys that can be used to authenticate any JWT. JWKS is a standard to download a batch of JWKs from a URL.

JWTs are matched with JSON Web Keys (JWKs) for validation as follows:

  • If the JWT has a kid (Key ID) field, the JWKs with matching kid fields are validated.

  • If the JWT has a kid field that doesn’t match any JWK or jwt_config key, the authentication request is rejected. See Validate JWTs with the jwt-config for more information.

  • If the JWT has an iss (Issuer) field (instead of a kid field) that matches the kid in one or more JWKs, the JWKs with matching kid fields are validated.

  • If the JWT does not have a kid field and the iss field does not match the kid field in any JWK, then validation is attempted with all the JWKs with a matching alg (Algorithm) field. If the alg field is not specified, the kty (Key Type) field is used instead.

The JWTs signature is validated as follows:

  • The JWT’s signature is validated against matching JWKs. If the JWT’s signature matches more than one JWK, validation is attempted against all matching JWKs. If the signature cannot be validated, the authentication request is rejected.

  • If the matching JWK includes an aud (Audience) field which does not match the aud field in the JWT, then the authentication request is rejected. The aud field can be a string or an array of strings. If any aud string of the JWT matches any aud string of the JWK, it is considered a match.

  • If the matching JWK does not define an audience (aud), audience checking is skipped. Note that aud is not a standard field in JWK.

The database username is identified as follows:

  • If the matching JWK has a usernameFrom field, the value of this JWK field is used to identify the name of the field in the JWT that determines the database username.

  • If the JWK does not have a usernameFrom field, but the JWT has a username field, then the username field determines the database username.

  • If the JWK does not have a usernameFrom field and the JWT does not have a username field, then the sub field in the JWT determines the database username.

Note

The database username in the JWT, once determined, must exactly match the database username used in the connection attempt. Otherwise, authentication is rejected.

Configure JWKS

To authenticate using JWKS, build a JWKS configuration file that contains your public keys and serve it from your Web server via static URL.

SingleStoreDB supports the following public key signature algorithms: RS256, RS384, RS512, ES256, ES384, and ES512.

Perform the following tasks to configure JWKS.

  1. Configure the certificate authority used to validate the TLS transfer of the JWKS using SSL.

    This step should be performed only if you are using self-signed certificates. If you are not using self-signed certificates then start with step 2.

    1. Install a public key certificate corresponding to your TLS encryption certificate authority that secures the HTTP SSL transfers.

    2. Run the following command to specify the certificate file:

      SET GLOBAL jwks_ssl_ca_certificate='/path/to/certificate-filename.pem'

  2. Configure the JWKS endpoint.

    SET GLOBAL jwks_endpoint='https://example.com/.well-known/jwks.json'

    Updating the endpoint configuration triggers a JWKS update and validation. The SET GLOBAL command returns an error if:

    • The GET request fails.

    • There are no valid keys in the updated JWKS.

    A warning is generated if any JWKS is rejected, even if the JWKS has valid keys. Information on rejected keys is available in the audit log.

To disable JWKS updates, set the endpoint to an empty string.

SET GLOBAL jwks_endpoint=''

Optionally, you can set a refresh interval to update the JWKS configuration automatically (specify the value in seconds).

SET GLOBAL jwks_update_interval = 3600

If this value is not set, or set to 0, the JWKS configuration updates only when the SET GLOBAL jwks_endpoint command is run. To manually refresh the JWKS configuration, run the SET GLOBAL jwks_endpoint command with its existing value.

JWKS Update Status

To check the status of the most recent JWKS update, use the SHOW STATUS EXTENDED command. It provides the following information:

  • JWKS_update_status: Specifies the status of the update. The status can be one of the following: SUCCESS, FAILED, or DISABLED. The FAILED status is followed by the reason behind the failure, in parenthesis.

  • JWKS_update_time: Specifies the timestamp of JWKS update.

    SHOW STATUS EXTENDED LIKE 'JWKS_update%';
****
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Variable_name      | Value                                                                 |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| JWKS_update_status | FAILED (Failed to connect to localhost port 8082: Connection refused) |
| JWKS_update_time   | Mon May  2 14:03:08 2022 EST                                          |
+--------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Validate JWTs with the jwt-config

The jwt-config file supports only one key per algorithm: RS256, RS384, RS512, HS256, HS384, HS512, ES256, ES384, ES512.

The username_claim field specifies the field in the JWT that is used to obtain the database username. The database username must match the username in the connection string.

The name of this static configuration file is passed to the engine at startup using the jwt_auth_config_file variable. Alternatively, it can be set with using the following command:

SET GLOBAL jwt_auth_config_file='filename.json'

The static JWT configuration is only read when the cluster restarts. Here's a sample jwt-config file:

{
    "username_claim": "email",
    "methods": [
        {
            "algorithms": [ "RS256" ],
            "secret": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\nMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAs7t1xiasxa7uSvtMZ8+MtRSiRnxHBEQfLcssxWV7NEvkJTOhAn1KYyM8nMzh4H356aUwCYrOtekjIMmkuBljhic1LQ7kmjdzRc2M/qBXFlD4C9+OxwDtE2tTEHbO/dKuLFSTVGdGVvyLMJIE08hc6ri7xGi1PSYgxH85u7vWB6p43VgHpRH/iJBw6BLBTyfBfgAtbsD8AHm8Ucf8zIPhOVO7gTUqAopbV23eyuzLHFRtXuyDQzkQc8PY0hkHlnlJkDfr0SBgxr1+jPPt7VmrtXIlzNMfbsI5SkLMfoVmXLTqeC8UDA/C8ayWCDh+2a2zuQF0bZSSr1Y9pKDvojTbEQIDAQAB\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----"
        },
        {
            "algorithms": [ "ES512" ],
            "secret": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----\nMHYwEAYHKoZIzj0CAQYFK4EEACIDYgAEQinMHQNolwDsI8/o0Ou3joss0m7n5MPR\n59ckzQELU+KDdSNJkTO/DVV6S9SpBoMVJ02hl3SQmZTZwy4cNtDHFVtD1UR6E9J8\naFbvsAi8PvSwaQ4ZP0mxgaEzpXfIH30+\n-----END PUBLIC KEY-----"
        }
    ]
}

Create a JWT User

Note

Creating JWT users is only supported in SingleStoreDB clusters running SingleStoreDB v7.8.3 and later.

To create a JWT user, run the following SQL command.

CREATE USER 'email@example.com'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH authentication_jwt REQUIRE SSL;

where:

  • email@example.com is the JWT user’s email address which serves as the username; anything but a UUID may be used

  • IDENTIFIED WITH authentication_jwt sets the user’s authentication method to use a JWT

  • REQUIRE SSL (mandatory) enforces the use of SSL for the JWT connection

In this section:

An open, industry standard typically used for authorization and information exchange.

A set of keys containing public keys that can be used to authenticate any JWT.