Configuring OAuth2 authentication for Kafka clients

Learn how to enable and configure OAuth authentication for Kafka clients.

In order for the clients to successfully establish a connection with a broker that has OAuth2 authentication enabled, you must configure OAuth2 related properties for the client. Configuring these properties instructs the client to acquire a signed JSON Web Token (JWT) and present that token to the broker when requesting access.

The following steps demonstrate configuration for console clients. This is done by creating a client.properties configuration file that includes the required properties. If you are configuring a custom developed client, see Java client security examples or .Net client security examples for code examples.

Ensure that the authorization server is reachable from the client host.
Obtain the authorization server's token endpoint URL.
Obtain the necessary credentials (client ID, client secret) and other parameters (for example, scope) from the authorization server.
Cloudera recommends that you configure your authorization servers as well as your Kafka brokers to use TLS/SSL. This is recommended so that JWT tokens and client credentials do not get exposed.

Create a client.properties file containing the following properties:

security.protocol=[***SECURITY PROTOCOL***]
sasl.mechanism=OAUTHBEARER
sasl.login.callback.handler.class=org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.secured.OAuthBearerLoginCallbackHandler
sasl.oauthbearer.token.endpoint.url=http://[***OAUTH SERVER***]/[***TOKEN ENDPOINT***]

Replace [***SECURITY PROTOCOL***] with either SASL_SSL or SASL_PLAINTEXT. The security protocol you specify depends on whether TLS/SSL encryption is enabled on the broker.

Optional: If TLS/SSL is enabled on the broker, add all required TLS/SSL properties to the client.properties file. For example:
```
ssl.truststore.location= [***PATH TO CLIENT TRUSTSTORE***]
ssl.truststore.password=[***PASSWORD***]
```
This example contains the minimum required TLS/SSL properties. Depending on your requirements and how TLS/SSL is configured on the broker, other properties might be required. For more information regarding TLS/SSL configuration, see Channel Encryption
Configure the JAAS.
You have two options when configuring the JAAS. You can either embed the full JAAS configuration in the client.properties file or use a separate JAAS configuration file.
1. Embed the required properties in the client.properties file with the sasl.jaas.config property.
```
sasl.jaas.config=org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.OAuthBearerLoginModule required clientId="[***CLIENT ID***]" clientSecret="[***CLIENT SECRET***]" scope="[***SCOPE***]";
```
2. Use a separate JAAS config file:
  1. Add a KafkaClient entry with a login module item to your JAAS configuration file.
    You can also create a new JAAS configuration file if you do not have an existing one available.
    KafkaClient { org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.OAuthBearerLoginModule required clientId="[***CLIENT ID***]" clientSecret="[***CLIENT SECRET***]" scope="[***SCOPE***]"; };
  2. Pass the location of your JAAS configuration file as a JVM parameter through a command line interface
```
export KAFKA_OPTS="-Djava.security.auth.login.config=[***PATH TO JAAS.CONF***]"
```

Clients that you run with the configuration file you created authenticate themselves to the Kafka broker with OAuth2.

Run a client:

Console consumer

kafka-console-consumer --bootstrap-server [***HOST1:PORT1***] --topic [***TOPIC***] --consumer.config client.properties

Console producer

kafka-console-producer --bootstrap-server [***HOST1:PORT1***] --topic [***TOPIC***] --producer.config client.properties