CASSANDRA Security 3

Question 1

Which security feature introduced in Apache Cassandra 4.0 records database activity such as logins, queries, and schema changes for compliance auditing?

Accepted Answer

Audit Logging

Answer

Audit Logging was introduced in Cassandra 4.0 and can be configured to record categories of events (DCL, DDL, DML, AUTH) to local files or custom log implementations.

Question 2

Which file is used to define JMX authentication credentials for securing nodetool access in Cassandra?

Accepted Answer

jmxremote.password

Answer

JMX authentication uses the standard Java JMX mechanism where credentials are stored in jmxremote.password and access permissions in jmxremote.access files.

Question 3

What CQL command changes the password for an existing role named 'analyst' in Apache Cassandra?

Accepted Answer

ALTER ROLE analyst WITH PASSWORD = 'newpass'

Answer

ALTER ROLE is the correct CQL command to modify role properties including password, login capability, and superuser status.

Question 4

What is the effect of setting 'WITH LOGIN = false' when creating or altering a Cassandra role?

Accepted Answer

The role cannot be used to open a client connection to Cassandra

Answer

Setting LOGIN = false creates a non-login role used purely for grouping permissions; it cannot authenticate a client connection and acts like a SQL group role.

Question 5

What availability risk is introduced by leaving the system_auth keyspace at its default replication factor of 1?

Accepted Answer

A single node failure can make authentication unavailable cluster-wide

Answer

With RF=1 for system_auth, if the single node holding a credential replica goes down, authentication requests routed to that token range will fail, potentially locking users out.

CASSANDRA - Apache Cassandra Database Practice Test

CASSANDRA - Apache Cassandra Database Practice Test

CASSANDRA Security 3