Authentication and authorization in InfluxDB
This page documents an earlier version of InfluxDB OSS. InfluxDB OSS v2 is the latest stable version. See the equivalent InfluxDB v2 documentation: Manage API tokens.
This document covers setting up and managing authentication and authorization in InfluxDB.
Authentication and authorization should not be relied upon to prevent access and protect data from malicious actors. If additional security or compliance features are desired, InfluxDB should be run behind a third-party service. If InfluxDB is being deployed on a publicly accessible endpoint, we strongly recommend authentication be enabled. Otherwise the data will be publicly available to any unauthenticated user.
Authentication
The InfluxDB API and the command line interface (CLI), which connects to the database using the API, include simple, built-in authentication based on user credentials. When you enable authentication, InfluxDB only executes HTTP requests that are sent with valid credentials.
Authentication only occurs at the HTTP request scope. Plugins do not currently have the ability to authenticate requests and service endpoints (for example, Graphite, collectd, etc.) are not authenticated.
Set up authentication
Create at least one admin user. See the authorization section for how to create an admin user.
If you enable authentication and have no users, InfluxDB will not enforce authentication and will only accept the query that creates a new admin user.
InfluxDB will enforce authentication once there is an admin user.
Enable authentication in your configuration file by setting the
auth-enabled
option totrue
in the[http]
section:[http] enabled = true bind-address = ":8086" auth-enabled = true # Set to true log-enabled = true write-tracing = false pprof-enabled = true pprof-auth-enabled = true debug-pprof-enabled = false ping-auth-enabled = true https-enabled = true https-certificate = "/etc/ssl/influxdb.pem"
If
pprof-enabled
is set totrue
, setpprof-auth-enabled
andping-auth-enabled
totrue
to require authentication on profiling and ping endpoints.Restart InfluxDB. Once restarted, InfluxDB checks user credentials on every request and only processes requests that have valid credentials for an existing user.
Authenticate requests
Authenticate with the InfluxDB API
There are two options for authenticating with the InfluxDB API.
If you authenticate with both Basic Authentication and the URL query parameters, the user credentials specified in the query parameters take precedence. The queries in the following examples assume that the user is an admin user. See the section on authorization for the different user types, their privileges, and more on user management.
Note: InfluxDB redacts passwords when you enable authentication.
Authenticate with Basic Authentication
curl -G http://localhost:8086/query \
-u todd:influxdb4ever \
--data-urlencode "q=SHOW DATABASES"
Authenticate with query parameters in the URL or request body
Set u
as the username and p
as the password.
Credentials as query parameters
curl -G "http://localhost:8086/query?u=todd&p=influxdb4ever" \
--data-urlencode "q=SHOW DATABASES"
Credentials in the request body
curl -G http://localhost:8086/query \
--data-urlencode "u=todd" \
--data-urlencode "p=influxdb4ever" \
--data-urlencode "q=SHOW DATABASES"
Authenticate with the CLI
There are three options for authenticating with the CLI.
Authenticate with environment variables
Use the INFLUX_USERNAME
and INFLUX_PASSWORD
environment variables to provide
authentication credentials to the influx
CLI.
export INFLUX_USERNAME=todd
export INFLUX_PASSWORD=influxdb4ever
echo $INFLUX_USERNAME $INFLUX_PASSWORD
todd influxdb4ever
influx
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 1.8.10
InfluxDB shell 1.8.10
Authenticate with CLI flags
Use the -username
and -password
flags to provide authentication credentials
to the influx
CLI.
influx -username todd -password influxdb4ever
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 1.8.10
InfluxDB shell 1.8.10
Authenticate with credentials in the influx shell
Start the influx
shell and run the auth
command.
Enter your username and password when prompted.
> influx
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 1.8.10
InfluxDB shell 1.8.10
> auth
username: todd
password:
>
Authenticate using JWT tokens
For a more secure alternative to using passwords, include JWT tokens with requests to the InfluxDB API. This is currently only possible through the InfluxDB HTTP API.
- Add a shared secret in your InfluxDB configuration file
- Generate your JWT token
- Include the token in HTTP requests
Add a shared secret in your InfluxDB configuration file
InfluxDB uses the shared secret to encode the JWT signature.
By default, shared-secret
is set to an empty string, in which case no JWT authentication takes place.
Add a custom shared secret in your InfluxDB configuration file.
The longer the secret string, the more secure it is:
[http]
shared-secret = "my super secret pass phrase"
Alternatively, to avoid keeping your secret phrase as plain text in your InfluxDB configuration file, set the value with the INFLUXDB_HTTP_SHARED_SECRET
environment variable.
Generate your JWT token
Use an authentication service to generate a secure token using your InfluxDB username, an expiration time, and your shared secret. There are online tools, such as https://jwt.io/, that will do this for you.
The payload (or claims) of the token must be in the following format:
{
"username": "myUserName",
"exp": 1516239022
}
- username - The name of your InfluxDB user.
- exp - The expiration time of the token in UNIX epoch time. For increased security, keep token expiration periods short. For testing, you can manually generate UNIX timestamps using https://www.unixtimestamp.com/index.php.
Encode the payload using your shared secret. You can do this with either a JWT library in your own authentication server or by hand at https://jwt.io/.
The generated token follows this format: <header>.<payload>.<signature>
Include the token in HTTP requests
Include your generated token as part of the Authorization
header in HTTP requests.
Use the Bearer
authorization scheme:
Authorization: Bearer <myToken>
Only unexpired tokens will successfully authenticate. Be sure your token has not expired.
Example query request with JWT authentication
curl -G "http://localhost:8086/query?db=demodb" \
--data-urlencode "q=SHOW DATABASES" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer <header>.<payload>.<signature>"
Authenticate Telegraf requests to InfluxDB
Authenticating Telegraf requests to an InfluxDB instance with
authentication enabled requires some additional steps.
In the Telegraf configuration file (/etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf
), uncomment
and edit the username
and password
settings.
###############################################################################
# OUTPUT PLUGINS #
###############################################################################
# ...
[[outputs.influxdb]]
# ...
username = "example-username" # Provide your username
password = "example-password" # Provide your password
# ...
Restart Telegraf and you’re all set!
Authorization
Authorization is only enforced once you’ve enabled authentication. By default, authentication is disabled, all credentials are silently ignored, and all users have all privileges.
User types and privileges
Admin users
Admin users have READ
and WRITE
access to all databases and full access to the following administrative queries:
Database management
CREATE DATABASE
DROP DATABASE
DROP SERIES
DROP MEASUREMENT
CREATE RETENTION POLICY
ALTER RETENTION POLICY
DROP RETENTION POLICY
CREATE CONTINUOUS QUERY
DROP CONTINUOUS QUERY
For more information about these commands, see Database management and Continuous queries.
User management
- Admin user management
- Non-admin user management:
- General user management:
See below for a complete discussion of the user management commands.
Non-admin users
Non-admin users can have one of the following three privileges per database:
READ
WRITE
ALL
(bothREAD
andWRITE
access)
READ
, WRITE
, and ALL
privileges are controlled per user per database. A new non-admin user has no access to any database until they are specifically granted privileges to a database by an admin user.
Non-admin users can SHOW
the databases on which they have READ
and/or WRITE
permissions.
User management commands
Admin user management
When you enable HTTP authentication, InfluxDB requires you to create at least one admin user before you can interact with the system.
CREATE USER admin WITH PASSWORD '<password>' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
Create another admin user
CREATE USER <username> WITH PASSWORD '<password>' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
Repeating the exact CREATE USER
statement is idempotent.
If any values change the database will return a duplicate user error.
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD '123456' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD '123456' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD '123' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
ERR: user already exists
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD '123456'
ERR: user already exists
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD '123456' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
>
GRANT
administrative privileges to an existing user
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES TO <username>
REVOKE
administrative privileges from an admin user
REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES FROM <username>
SHOW
all existing users and their admin status
SHOW USERS
CLI Example
> SHOW USERS
user admin
todd false
paul true
hermione false
dobby false
Non-admin user management
CREATE
a new non-admin user
CREATE USER <username> WITH PASSWORD '<password>'
CLI example
> CREATE USER todd WITH PASSWORD 'influxdb41yf3'
> CREATE USER alice WITH PASSWORD 'wonder\'land'
> CREATE USER "rachel_smith" WITH PASSWORD 'asdf1234!'
> CREATE USER "monitoring-robot" WITH PASSWORD 'XXXXX'
> CREATE USER "$savyadmin" WITH PASSWORD 'm3tr1cL0v3r'
>
Important notes about providing user credentials
- The user value must be wrapped in double quotes if it starts with a digit, is an InfluxQL keyword, contains a hyphen and or includes any special characters, for example:
!@#$%^&*()-
- The password string must be wrapped in single quotes.
Do not include the single quotes when authenticating requests.
We recommend avoiding the single quote (
'
) and backslash (\
) characters in passwords. For passwords that include these characters, escape the special character with a backslash (e.g. (\'
) when creating the password and when submitting authentication requests. - Repeating the exact
CREATE USER
statement is idempotent. If any values change the database will return a duplicate user error. See GitHub Issue #6890 for details.
CLI example
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123456'
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123456'
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123'
ERR: user already exists
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123456'
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123456' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
ERR: user already exists
> CREATE USER "todd" WITH PASSWORD '123456'
>
GRANT
READ
, WRITE
or ALL
database privileges to an existing user
GRANT [READ,WRITE,ALL] ON <database_name> TO <username>
CLI examples:
GRANT
READ
access to todd
on the NOAA_water_database
database:
> GRANT READ ON "NOAA_water_database" TO "todd"
>
GRANT
ALL
access to todd
on the NOAA_water_database
database:
> GRANT ALL ON "NOAA_water_database" TO "todd"
>
REVOKE
READ
, WRITE
, or ALL
database privileges from an existing user
REVOKE [READ,WRITE,ALL] ON <database_name> FROM <username>
CLI examples:
REVOKE
ALL
privileges from todd
on the NOAA_water_database
database:
> REVOKE ALL ON "NOAA_water_database" FROM "todd"
>
REVOKE
WRITE
privileges from todd
on the NOAA_water_database
database:
> REVOKE WRITE ON "NOAA_water_database" FROM "todd"
>
Note: If a user with
ALL
privileges hasWRITE
privileges revoked, they are left withREAD
privileges, and vice versa.
SHOW
a user’s database privileges
SHOW GRANTS FOR <user_name>
CLI example:
> SHOW GRANTS FOR "todd"
database privilege
NOAA_water_database WRITE
another_database_name READ
yet_another_database_name ALL PRIVILEGES
one_more_database_name NO PRIVILEGES
General admin and non-admin user management
Reset a user’s password
SET PASSWORD FOR <username> = '<password>'
CLI example:
> SET PASSWORD FOR "todd" = 'influxdb4ever'
>
Note: The password string must be wrapped in single quotes. Do not include the single quotes when authenticating requests.
We recommend avoiding the single quote ('
) and backslash (\
) characters in passwords
For passwords that include these characters, escape the special character with a backslash (e.g. (\'
) when creating the password and when submitting authentication requests.
DROP
a user
DROP USER <username>
CLI example:
> DROP USER "todd"
>
Authentication and authorization HTTP errors
Requests with no authentication credentials or incorrect credentials yield the HTTP 401 Unauthorized
response.
Requests by unauthorized users yield the HTTP 403 Forbidden
response.
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