11.12. Kerberos

GeoMesa includes initial support for Accumulo clusters which are authenticated using Kerberos. Currently keytabs (and not cached TGTs) are supported, apart from initial setup which requires a cached TGT, usually obtained using kinit.

Kerberos functionality should be used as follows:

  1. setup_namespace.sh should be called with the -t flag to use a cached TGT.
  2. geomesa command line tools should be used with the --keytab parameter. Ensure ACCUMULO_HOME and HADOOP_HOME are both set.
  3. Programmatic access via the GeoTools API should specify the accumulo.keytab.path parameter.
  4. The GeoServer store should specify the accumulo.keytab.path parameter. Ensure core-site.xml is accessible to GeoServer e.g. in the webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/classes/ directory.

Note that Kerberos support is only available in Accumulo 1.7.0 or newer.

11.12.1. Development & Testing

GeoMesa Kerberos support was developed against Hortonworks Data Platform 2.5 authenticating against an MIT KDC as described here. It has been tested in a limited production environment with Hortonworks Data Platform 2.5 authenticating against a Red Hat Identity Management server.