Ident Authentication

The Ident protocol, defined in RFC 1413, authenticates a database user with a system user name.To see if that system user can log in without specifying a password, you configure Vertica client authentication to query an Ident server. With this feature, the DBADMIN user can run automated scripts to execute tasks on the Vertica server.

Following the instructions in these topics to install, set up, and configure Ident authentication for your database:

• Installing and Setting Up an Ident Server
• Configuring Ident Authentication for Database Users

Examples

The following examples show several ways to configure Ident authentication.

Allow system_user1 to connect to the database as Vertica vuser1:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION v_ident METHOD 'ident' LOCAL;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident SET system_users='system_user1';
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION v_ident to vuser1;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident ENABLE;

Allow system_user1, system_user2, and system_user3 to connect to the database as vuser1. Use colons (:) to separate the user names:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION v_ident METHOD 'ident' LOCAL;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident SET system_users='system_user1:system_user2:system_user3';
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION v_ident TO vuser1;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident ENABLE;

Associate the authentication with Public using a GRANT AUTHENTICATION statement. The users, system_user1, system_user2, and system_user3 can now connect to the database as any database user:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION v_ident METHOD 'ident' LOCAL;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident SET system_users='system_user1:system_user2:system_user3';
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION v_ident to Public;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident ENABLE;

Set the system_users parameter to * to allow any system user to connect to the database as vuser1:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION v_ident METHOD 'ident' LOCAL;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident SET system_users='*';
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION v_ident TO vuser1;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident ENABLE;

Using a GRANT statement, associate the v_ident authentication with Public to allow system_user1 to log into the database as any database user:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION v_ident METHOD 'ident' LOCAL;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident SET system_users='system_user1';
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION v_ident to Public;
=> ALTER AUTHENTICATION v_ident ENABLE;