Password File Authentication¶

Presto can be configured to enable frontend password authentication over HTTPS for clients, such as the CLI, or the JDBC and ODBC drivers. The username and password are validated against usernames and passwords stored in a file.

Password file authentication is very similar to LDAP Authentication. Please see the LDAP documentation for generic instructions on configuring the server and clients to use TLS and authenticate with a username and password.

Password Authenticator Configuration¶

Enable password file authentication by creating an etc/password-authenticator.properties file on the coordinator:

password-authenticator.name=file
file.password-file=/path/to/password.db

The following configuration properties are available:

Password Validation¶

Password validation in Presto supports both PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256 and PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1 algorithms. To ensure modern cryptographic standards, clients are encouraged to use PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256. A fallback mechanism is available to maintain compatibility with legacy systems using PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1.

Migration to PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256 is strongly recommended to maintain security.

API Method¶

The following method uses the PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256 validation mechanism and includes a fallback mechanism:

/**
 * @Deprecated using PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1 is deprecated and clients should switch to PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256
 */
public static boolean doesPBKDF2PasswordMatch(String inputPassword, String hashedPassword)
{
    PBKDF2Password password = PBKDF2Password.fromString(hashedPassword);

    // Validate using PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256
    if (validatePBKDF2Password(inputPassword, password, "PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256")) {
        return true;
    }

    // Fallback to PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1
    LOG.warn("Using deprecated PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1 for password validation.");
    return validatePBKDF2Password(inputPassword, password, "PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1");
}

Fallback Mechanism

If PBKDF2WithHmacSHA256 fails for legacy reasons, the system gracefully falls back to PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1 while logging a warning.

Password Files¶

File Format¶

The password file contains a list of usernames and passwords, one per line, separated by a colon. Passwords must be securely hashed using bcrypt or PBKDF2.

bcrypt passwords start with $2y$ and must use a minimum cost of 8:

test:$2y$10$BqTb8hScP5DfcpmHo5PeyugxHz5Ky/qf3wrpD7SNm8sWuA3VlGqsa

PBKDF2 passwords are composed of the iteration count, followed by the hex encoded salt and hash:

test:1000:5b4240333032306164:f38d165fce8ce42f59d366139ef5d9e1ca1247f0e06e503ee1a611dd9ec40876bb5edb8409f5abe5504aab6628e70cfb3d3a18e99d70357d295002c3d0a308a0

Creating a Password File¶

Password files utilizing the bcrypt format can be created using the htpasswd utility from the Apache HTTP Server. The cost must be specified, as Presto enforces a higher minimum cost than the default.

Create an empty password file to get started:

touch password.db

Add or update the password for the user test:

htpasswd -B -C 10 password.db test