[cassandra-website] branch trunk updated: February 2022 blog "Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra Part: 2"

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     new 03f4603  February 2022 blog "Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra Part: 2"
03f4603 is described below

commit 03f46031fa6b12fafe7812fae9d7dab8fa22f744
Author: Diogenese Topper <di...@gmail.com>
AuthorDate: Wed Feb 2 10:24:36 2022 -0800

    February 2022 blog "Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra Part: 2"
    
    patch by Maulin Vasavada, Diogenese Topper; reviewed by Erick Ramirez for
    CASSANDRA-17343
    
    Add blog post titled "Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra Part: 2"
    update blog index
    add image for blog
    patch by Maulin Vasavada, Diogenese Topper
---
 .../tightening-security-p2-unsplash-paradoxxxx.jpg | Bin 0 -> 380748 bytes
 site-content/source/modules/ROOT/pages/blog.adoc   |  24 ++++++
 ...ening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-2.adoc |  96 +++++++++++++++++++++
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@@ -14,6 +14,30 @@ NOTES FOR CONTENT CREATORS
 [openblock,card-header]
 ------
 [discrete]
+=== Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra: Part 2
+[discrete]
+==== February 4, 2022
+------
+[openblock,card-content]
+------
+Part 2 of Maulin Vasavada’s mini-series covers how to secure data in transit using TLS/mTLS, configure TLS/mTLS properly, and the challenges before the release of Apache Cassandra 4.0.
+
+[openblock,card-btn card-btn--blog]
+--------
+[.btn.btn--alt]
+xref:blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-2.adoc[Read More]
+--------
+
+------
+----
+//end card
+
+//start card
+[openblock,card shadow relative test]
+----
+[openblock,card-header]
+------
+[discrete]
 === Tightening Security for Apache Cassandra: Part 1
 [discrete]
 ==== January 31, 2022
diff --git a/site-content/source/modules/ROOT/pages/blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-2.adoc b/site-content/source/modules/ROOT/pages/blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-2.adoc
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+= Tightening security for Apache Cassandra: Part 2
+:page-layout: single-post
+:page-role: blog-post
+:page-post-date: February, 4 2022
+:page-post-author: Maulin Vasavada
+:description: The Apache Cassandra Community
+
+image::blog/tightening-security-p2-unsplash-paradoxxxx.jpg[blurred arrows of light on a highway]
+
+Image credit: Photo by https://unsplash.com/@paradoxxxx[躺着的诗人 on Unsplash^]
+
+In xref:blog/Tightening-Security-for-Apache-Cassandra-Part-1.adoc[Part 1], we discussed how the growth in e-commerce transactions globally has required more secure software and one avenue to pursue securing data in transit is TLS/mTLS. This time we will discuss the challenges of TLS/mTLS, how it's configured, and what Apache Cassandra offered before the latest release, version 4.0.
+
+=== Challenges involved in TLS/mTLS
+
+We need to consider several operational challenges when using TLS/mTLS. As a note, we will refer to private/public keys, certificates, and passwords as ‘security credentials’ in the remainder of the article.
+
+==== Storing private key and password
+
+In the same way you need to consider keeping the key safe to your bank deposit box, storing long-lived security credentials on the filesystem poses significant risks. The implications of compromised or lost credentials are severe, although you can use filesystem permissions to buy yourself time to apply a better solution. As key distribution is a challenging problem, Apache Cassandra assumes that you already have a secure way to distribute those credentials to your Cassandra machines.
+
+==== Credential rotations
+
+Even if you keep credentials safe, the best practice in the industry is to rotate them periodically. This is particularly important in the case of mTLS as you will want to introduce new trusted clients or remove old ones. Additionally, the security landscape and its standards keep evolving; and find that you will have better algorithms and standards today than a few months or years ago. To take advantage of improvements and deal with client housekeeping, you will need to generate new key [...]
+
+==== Operations at scale
+
+Operators who maintain and manage large distributed system deployments know the importance of easy operations and automation. It’s essential for guaranteeing faster turn-around times while ensuring security is not compromised. You may have thousands of computers (thousands of servers and possibly 10x clients for mTLS) when you operate at scale. The challenge is distributing and maintaining the security credentials on each computer without it quickly becoming an operational nightmare and  [...]
+
+==== Context specific security constraints
+
+On top of all these challenges, you may have to work within context-specific security constraints that require you to pull the security credentials in a customized format or mechanism. 
+
+Let’s see how Apache Cassandra (pre-4.0) overcomes the above challenges for configuring TLS/mTLS on the server-side.
+
+=== TLS support before Apache Cassandra 4.0
+
+Since Apache Cassandra is written in Java, it uses the https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19830-01/819-4712/ablqw/index.html[notion of ‘keystore’^] to store asymmetric key-pair and ‘truststore’ for storing ‘trusted certificate entries,’ which are optionally required to trust the caller end of the connection. Cassandra also enables hot-reloading of those security credentials based on the filesystem's `last-updated` timestamp. Apache Cassandra achieves this by periodically querying the filesystem [...]
+
+==== TLS configuration
+
+In the `cassandra.yaml` file on the server, you must specify the `keystore` and `keystore_password` configurations. The `keystore` configuration refers to the file path for the keystore relative to the location the server is going to run from. This configuration supports the standard https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/specs/security/standard-names.html#keystore-types[keystore types supported by Java^]. `keystore_password` refers to the password for the keystore in plain text.
+
+For the TLS between the client application and the Cassandra server, you must specify these configurations under `client_encryption_options`.
+
+For example:
+
+```
+client_encryption_options:
+    keystore: conf/.keystore
+    keystore_password: cassandra
+```
+
+For the TLS between Cassandra server nodes (e.g., for data replication), you must specify these configurations under `server_encryption_options`.
+
+For example:
+
+```
+server_encryption_options:
+    keystore: conf/.keystore
+    keystore_password: cassandra
+```
+
+==== mTLS configuration
+
+Besides the ‘keystore’ configuration, you need to add a ‘truststore’ configuration to store trusted certificates coming from either the client application or the other Cassandra server nodes to the Cassandra server. You can do this by specifying `truststore` and `truststore_password` configurations in the `cassandra.yaml` file on the server. The ‘`truststore`’ configuration refers to the file path for the truststore, relative to the location where the server will run from. It supports th [...]
+
+For the mTLS between the client application and the Cassandra server, you must specify these configurations under `client_encryption_options`.
+
+For example:
+
+```
+client_encryption_options:
+    keystore: conf/.keystore
+    keystore_password: cassandra
+    truststore: conf/.truststore
+    truststore_password: cassandra
+```
+
+For the mTLS between Cassandra server nodes (again, for example, data replication), you must specify these configurations under `server_encryption_options`.
+
+For example:
+
+```
+server_encryption_options:
+    keystore: conf/.keystore
+    keystore_password: cassandra
+    truststore: conf/.truststore
+    truststore_password: cassandra
+```
+
+As you will have noticed, we must have keystore and truststore files on the filesystem to use TLS/mTLS. While this configuration enables us to secure traffic between the client application and Cassandra server and inter-server traffic, it doesn’t address all the challenges of using TLS/mTLS. In the final article of the series, we tackle those problems head-on and discuss how Apache Cassandra 4.0+ solves them.
+
+=== Want to learn more about Apache Cassandra’s security features?
+
+Head to our link:/doc/latest/cassandra/operating/security.html[Security documentation] section for more details.

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