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Extension Authentication Plugin

Table of Contents

Introduction

This design aims to introduce the extension auth plugin feature to TiDB. The extension auth plugin is a plugin that allows users to implement their own authentication and authorization logic. The plugin is loaded by TiDB and is responsible for authenticating users and authorizing their operations.

Auth plugin is a feature supported in MySQL, so implementing this feature in TiDB will make it more compatible with MySQL.

Motivation or Background

Currently, TiDB only supports the built-in authentication and authorization mechanism. The built-in mechanism is not flexible enough to meet the needs of some users. For example, some users may want to use their own authentication and authorization logic, or some users may want to integrate TiDB with their existing authentication and authorization system. Using the extension system to implement an auth plugin is a good way for users to plug in their own logic.

Current Code Path

Here we only cover the critical paths involving authentication and authorization.

Authentication:

  • server.onConn
    • A new connection is created and handled using a separate goroutine
  • conn.handshake
    • Perform handshake when a new handshake event is received
  • conn.readOptionalSSLRequestAndHandshakeResponse
    • SSL handshake completed before running custom auth code
    • This function handles validating and aligning the plugin used for connection on both client and server, and reading the password from client
      • For plugins like caching_sha2_password and LDAP, at this stage, the server can communicate with the client by sending extra data back to the client (e.g. salt). Then the client can use this data to process the password before sending it back to the server
  • conn.openSessionAndDoAuth
    • If readOptionalSSLRequestAndHandshakeResponse does not return error, we move forward to the session creation and authentication stage using the password read from the client
  • session.Auth -> privileges.ConnectionVerification
    • Authenticate the user based on the plugin specified. For password based authentication such as mysql_native_password, TiDB will compare the password digest with the locally stored hash

Authorization is more straight-forward (more details available in the official developer guide):

  • server.onConn
  • server.HandleStmt
  • server.ExecuteStmt
  • executor.Compile
  • Planner.optimize
  • privileges.RequestVerification
    • Note that this function will be called multiple times, one time for each privilege required by the SQL statements

Detailed Design

We propose improving the extension system to support the following functionalities:

  • Allow user defined extra authentication check to be executed during connection establishment phase
    • Current SessionHandler support in the extension system only allows running observer functions that do not affect the connection attempt result
    • Errors returned from this check will cause the connect attempt to fail
  • Allow user defined extra SQL privilege check to be executed before SQL statements are executed

Note that the above plugin SQL privilege checks are only additional to the existing checks done by TiDB. If the existing checks done by TiDB fails, the plugin checks won’t be invoked. This means that the user should already have the corresponding SQL privileges granted to itself before we can trigger the plugin privilege check, otherwise the SQL request should be rejected beforehand since the user is missing the privileges.

Users should be able to develop custom auth plugins which handle the above two checks. For example, if a user develops a plugin called authentication_my_plugin, then once the plugin is loaded, the user can run the following SQL statement:

CREATE USER 'my_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED WITH 'authentication_my_plugin' AS 'optional_authentication_pwd';

After this, my_user’s connection verification and privilege verification will be handled by the plugin in addition to the existing default TiDB checks. Users not identified with the plugin will not go through the plugin authorization and authentication checks.

Interface

We propose a set of interfaces for users to implement an auth plugin that are similar to what is offered in MySQL’s authentication plugins. We will modify TiDB’s code to call these interfaces during the authentication/authorization flows. Most of these interfaces will receive parameters that are used in the existing auth flows in TiDB, so that the plugin developer can access as much information as possible.

Following is the interface for an auth plugin:

// AuthPlugin contains attributes needed for an authentication plugin.
type AuthPlugin struct {
    // Name is the name of the auth plugin. It will be registered as a system variable in TiDB which can be used inside the `CREATE USER ... IDENTIFIED WITH 'plugin_name'` statement.
    Name string
	
    // RequiredClientSidePlugin is the name of the client-side plugin required by the server-side plugin. It will be used to check if the client has the required plugin installed and require the client to use it if installed.
    // The user can require default MySQL plugins such as 'caching_sha2_password' or 'mysql_native_password'. 
    RequiredClientSidePlugin string
    
    // AuthenticateUser is called when a client connects to the server as a user and the server authenticates the user.
    // If an error is returned, the login attempt fails, otherwise it succeeds.
    // authUser: the username in the connect attempt
    // storedPwd: the user's password stored in mysql.user table
    // inputPwd (authentication): the user's password passed in from the connection attempt in bytes
    // salt: randomly generated salt for the current connection
    // connState: the TLS connection state (contains the TLS certificate) if client is using TLS. It will be nil if the client is not using TLS
    // authConn: interface for the plugin to communicate with the client
    AuthenticateUser func(authUser string, storedPwd string, inputPwd []byte, salt []byte, connState *tls.ConnectionState, authConn conn.AuthConn) error
    
    // GenerateAuthString is a function for user to implement customized ways to encode the password (e.g. hash/salt/clear-text). The returned string will be stored as the encoded password in the mysql.user table.
    // If the input password is considered as invalid, this should return an error.
    // pwd: User's input password in CREATE/ALTER USER statements in clear-text
    GenerateAuthString func(pwd string) (string, bool)
    
    // ValidateAuthString checks if the password hash stored in the mysql.user table or passed in from `IDENTIFIED AS` is valid.
    // This is called when retrieving an existing user to make sure the password stored is valid and not modified and make sure user is passing a valid password hash in `IDENTIFIED AS`.
    // pwdHash: hash of the password stored in the internal user table
    ValidateAuthString func(pwdHash string) bool
    
    // VerifyPrivilege is called for each user queries, and serves as an extra check for privileges for the user.
    // It will only be executed if the user has already been granted the privilege in SQL layer.
    // Returns true if user has the requested privilege.
    // activeRoles: list of active MySQL roles for the current user
    // user: current user's name
    // host: the host that the user is connecting from
    // db: the database to check for privilege
    // table: the table to check for privilege
    // column: the column to check for privilege (currently just a placeholder in TiDB as column-level privilege is not supported by TiDB yet)
    // priv: the privilege type of the SQL statement that will be executed
    // connState: the TLS connection state (contains the TLS certificate) if client is using TLS. It will be nil if the client is not using TLS
    VerifyPrivilege func(activeRoles []*auth.RoleIdentity, user, host, db, table, column string, priv mysql.PrivilegeType, connState *tls.ConnectionState) bool
    
    // VerifyDynamicPrivilege is called for each user queries, and serves as an extra check for dynamic privileges for the user.
    // It will only be executed if the user has already been granted the dynamic privilege in SQL layer.
    // Returns true if user has the requested privilege.
    // activeRoles: list of active MySQL roles for the current user
    // user: current user's name
    // host: current user's host
    // priv: the dynamic privilege required by the user's SQL statement
    // withGrant: whether the statement to be executed is granting the user privilege for executing GRANT statements
    // connState: the TLS connection state (contains the TLS certificate) if client is using TLS. It will be nil if the client is not using TLS
    VerifyDynamicPrivilege func(activeRoles []*auth.RoleIdentity, user, host, privName string, withGrant bool, connState *tls.ConnectionState) bool
}

Note that we are using a struct instead of an interface to make sure that if in the future we add a new function/attribute required, existing user-implemented plugin code are still compatible.

Let’s discuss each attributes/functions and why they are needed:

Name: the name of the plugin. This will be used in the CREATE USER ... IDENTIFIED WITH 'plugin_name' statement. The plugin name will be registered as a system variable in TiDB.

RequiredClientSidePlugin: the name of the client-side plugin required by the server-side plugin. This is used to check if the client has the required plugin installed and require the client to use it if installed. The user can require default MySQL plugins such as caching_sha2_password or mysql_native_password.

AuthenticateUser: this should include the authentication check performed during connection attempts after the plugin/SSL information has been exchanged between the client and server. It should be called inside https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/8d9e67b37dea759db0980aeddf4da967bf93e83e/pkg/privilege/privileges/privileges.go#L514 where the privilege manager checks the authentication plugin, and receives all the information it needs. For example, username, password, and the TLS connection state which includes the TLS certificates. If an error is returned, the connection attempt will fail. If the server would like to communicate with the client to send extra data (e.g. salt) to the client, it can use the authConn interface to do so. The client can then use this data to process the password before sending it back to the server.

ValidateAuthString: after the connection attempt is granted, validates whether the password stored locally in TiDB is a valid password hash. This should be called in https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/8d9e67b37dea759db0980aeddf4da967bf93e83e/pkg/privilege/privileges/privileges.go#L213. This is also called with the user is created with CREATE USER .... IDENTIFIED AS 'my_auth_string' where my_auth_string will be validated using this function to make sure it's a valid hash.

GenerateAuthString: called when executing CREATE/ALTER USER/SET PASSWORD statements to encode the password. It should return the encoded password and whether the input password is legal. Should be called inside https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/8d9e67b37dea759db0980aeddf4da967bf93e83e/pkg/parser/ast/misc.go#L1421. Password validation during creation/alter time should be done inside this function.

VerifyPrivilege: is called to authorize users for executing SQL statements. This will be an extra check on top of the existing check done with the MySQLPrivilege.RequestVerification, so it should be called after the statement here: https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/8d9e67b37dea759db0980aeddf4da967bf93e83e/pkg/privilege/privileges/privileges.go#L189. If the user does not have the privileges granted in MySQL, the overall approval will fail and the user will get a privilege error. The overall logic should be:

func VerifyPrivilege(mysqlPriv *MySQLPrivilege, user string) bool {
	return mysqlPriv.RequestVerification(...) && getPluginForUser(user).RequestVerification(...)
}

VerifyDynamicPrivilege: similar to the above interface, but used for dynamic privileges. This will be an extra check on top of the existing check done with the MySQLPrivilege.RequestDynamicVerification, so it should be called after the statement here: https://github.com/pingcap/tidb/blob/8d9e67b37dea759db0980aeddf4da967bf93e83e/pkg/privilege/privileges/privileges.go#L129. If the user does not have the dynamic privileges granted in MySQL, the overall approval will fail and the user will get a privilege error. The overall logic should be:

func VerifyDynamicPrivilege(mysqlPriv *MySQLPrivilege, user string) bool {
	return mysqlPriv.RequestDynamicVerification(...) && getPluginForUser(user).RequestDynamicVerification(...)
}

Note that for both the privilege checking functions above, they only receive one privilege in the parameter. This means if the transactions include multiple statements requiring multiple privileges, these functions will be called multiple times using the different privileges.

The above interfaces and parameters should give the users all information they need to make a decision on the authentication and authorization. For authorizations before each request, the MySQL user should already be granted with the corresponding privileges in MySQL using GRANT statements.

Compatibility

The feature needs to be compatible with existing user related statements and options, such as CREATE USER, ALTER USER, SET PASSWORD. However, it will not work with existing functionalities such as password expiry and password validation. Users can implement their own password validation logic inside the GenerateAuthString implementation.

There are some cases where the VerifyPrivilege and VerifyDynamicPrivilege functions of the plugin will not be executed - when executing one statement requires validating the privileges of another user which is not the current session's user. For example, when auth plugin user u1 creates a view with CREATE VIEW SQL SECURITY DEFINER u1, the view is created based on the privileges of u1. Later, when another user u2 runs a SELECT on the view, TiDB will not be able to check the privileges of u1 because it does not have the tls.ConnectionState information for u1 to pass into VerifyPrivilege. This means we will only check the existing privileges inside TiDB's mysql database for cases like this. Another case is when the current user attempts to run SET PASSWORD/ALTER USER for other users, TiDB needs to check if the other users have SUPER_USER or RESTRICTED_USER_ADMIN privileges.

Test Design

This feature requires tests focusing on functional and compatibility. Performance should not be a concern, since that depends on the actual auth plugin implementation and it is up to the users to keep the implementation performant if needed.

Functional Tests

We will implement unit tests for all of the auth plugin extension interfaces, and ensure that they are executed properly in the code path that we inject them.

Scenario Tests

We will implement client to server tests to test out scenarios where MySQL users are created with and without using an auth plugin from the extension system. For example:

  • Creating a user using the plugin
    • Connecting as the user and verify that the connection verification API is called and errors are correctly translated to connection rejections
      • Execute SQL statements and verify that the request (dynamic) verification APIs are called and errors are correctly translated to permission rejections
      • Alter user changes can be applied correctly
      • Passwords can be encoded with the API defined in the plugin
  • When the connection changes between users, the system should behave correctly
    • From non-plugin user to plugin user
    • From plugin user to non-plugin user
    • From plugin user to plugin user

Compatibility Tests

This feature should integrate well with all the existing test cases since it is an additional functionality. Existing tests related to authentication and authorization should continue to pass since they are not using auth plugins.

We should add tests to verify that for cases mentioned in the compatibility section and make sure VerifyPrivilege and VerifyDynamicPrivilege are not called.

Benchmark Tests

This feature should not affect the performance of the TiDB as it simply provides interfaces for users to inject their own auth plugins via the extension system. The performance implication will come from the implementation of those plugins which depends on how the users of the framework want to use it.

Impacts & Risks

If a user is using an auth plugin, the SQL privilege status in TiDB might not reflect the actual privileges, since there might be an outside system that decides whether the privilege check can actually pass. However, this is an intentional behavioral change when the user uses an auth plugin since we are providing users customizations on checks to run.

The design does not account for implementing the same level of proxy user support as in MySQL auth plugin, since currently TiDB does not support proxy users yet. Also existing support for password expiry and validation will not work, as mentioned in the earlier section.

Another restriction is the limitation due to lacking the tls.ConnectionState required for privilege verification. Refer to compatibility section for more details.

Investigation & Alternatives

MySQL

MySQL supports customizing authentication methods with authentication plugins. This design proposes a similar set of interfaces for users to define, compared to those in MySQL. The main differences are that we also allow defining authorization checks (SQL privileges).

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL supports custom authentication mechanisms using Linux’s Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) support. When a user connects to Postgres, the server will authenticate the user using the PAM service locally, which can trigger some customized authentication code. However, this does not allow plugging in customized authorization checks for SQL privileges.

Technically, we could implement PAM support in TiDB instead of what is being proposed in this design, but it will just be one standard authentication option which does not utilize the existing extension framework. Implementing auth plugin extension support is more flexible as it allows many different customizations for both authentication and authorization. With the auth plugin extension support in place, we could even consider implementing the PAM auth scheme as an auth plugin.

Unresolved Questions

None