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Kafka Authentication with Kerberos

This page describes how to configure a Kafka Source and Destination to use Kerberos authentication. It also documents the verification steps to test your setup.

Availability:

  • Kerberos is available only on Linux, so you’ll have to use a Linux host or Linux container to work through this procedure.
  • Kerberos is not supported for Cribl-managed Cribl.Cloud Workers, but it is enabled for customer-managed (hybrid or on-prem) Worker Groups, whether the Leader is based in Cribl.Cloud or on-prem.

For additional information on Kafka configuration, see also our Kafka Source or Kafka Destination reference topics.

Set up the Cribl Stream Host
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Once you have set up an instance of Kafka with Kerberos, perform the following steps on the same host where Cribl Stream is running:

  1. Install krb5-user (or the equivalent for non-Ubuntu systems) on your Worker Node.
  2. Ensure that you have a valid /etc/krb5.conf file. Consult your Kerberos admin if you don’t have one. Kerberos authentication with Kafka specifically requires rdns = false in this config, but no other special settings. Cribl Stream supports the file and directory cache types.
  3. Ensure that the keytab path in your configuration points to a valid keytab on each Worker Node.

Configure the Kafka Destination
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Create a new Kafka Destination with the following settings:

General Settings
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  • Brokers: broker.kerberos-demo.local:9092
  • Topic: Cribl

Authentication Settings
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  • Enabled: Yes
  • SASL mechanism: GSSAPI/Kerberos
  • Keytab location: /<path-to-client-keytab>/kafka-client.key. This path to the valid keytab file must be available on all Worker Nodes.
  • Principal: kafka_producer@TEST.CONFLUENT.IO
  • Broker service class: kafka

Configure the Kafka Source
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Create a new Kafka Source with the following settings:

General Settings
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  • Brokers: broker.kerberos-demo.local:9092
  • Topic: Cribl
  • Group ID: Cribl

Authentication Settings
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  • Enabled: Yes
  • SASL mechanism: GSSAPI/Kerberos
  • Keytab location: /<path-to-client-keytab>/kafka-client.key
  • Principal: kafka_producer@TEST.CONFLUENT.IO
  • Broker service class: kafka

Verify the Setup
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  1. Open the Live Data tab and start a capture with Capture Time (sec) and Capture Up to N Events set to high values (for example, 1000).

  2. In a separate browser tab, navigate to the Destination modal’s Test tab and select Run Test a few times.

  3. Return to the Source’s Live Data tab and verify that the Source is capturing events.