Certificate-based authentication

Certificate-based authentication allows secure, passwordless access to the REST API and databases.

You can set up certificate-based authentication for specific users to enable secure, passwordless access to the Redis Enterprise Software REST API and databases.

Set up certificate-based authentication

To set up certificate-based authentication:

1. Add the mtls_trusted_ca certificate.

2. Configure cluster settings.

3. If you want to enable certificate-based authentication for databases, you must enable mutual TLS for the relevant databases. Otherwise, you can skip this step.

4. Create certificate auth_method users.

Add mtls_trusted_ca certificate

Add a trusted CA certificate mtls_trusted_ca to the cluster using an update cluster certificate request:

PUT /v1/cluster/update_cert
{
  "name": "mtls_trusted_ca",
  "certificate": "<content of certificate PEM file>"
}

Configure cluster settings

Update cluster settings with mutual TLS configuration.

For certificate validation by Subject Alternative Name (SAN), use:

PUT /v1/cluster
{
  "mtls_certificate_authentication": true,
  "mtls_client_cert_subject_validation_type": "san_cn",
  "mtls_authorized_subjects": [{
    "CN": "<Common Name>"
  }]
}

For certificate validation by full Subject Name, use:

PUT /v1/cluster
{
  "mtls_certificate_authentication": true,
  "mtls_client_cert_subject_validation_type": "full_subject",
  "mtls_authorized_subjects": [{
    "CN": "<Common Name>",
    "OU": [<array of Organizational Unit strings>],
    "O": "<Organization>",
    "C": "<2-letter country code>",
    "L": "<Locality (city)>",
    "ST": "<State/Province>"
  }]
}

Replace the placeholder values <> with your client certificate's subject values.

Enable mutual TLS for databases

Before you can connect to a database using certificate-based authentication, you must enable mutual TLS (mTLS). See Enable TLS for detailed instructions.

Create certificate auth_method users

When you create new users, include "auth_method": "certificate" and certificate_subject_line in the request body :

POST /v1/users
{
  "auth_method": "certificate",
  "certificate_subject_line": "CN=<Common Name>, OU=<Organization Unit>, O=<Organization>, L=<Locality>, ST=<State/Province>, C=<Country>"
}

Replace the placeholder values <> with your client certificate's subject values.

Authenticate REST API requests

To use the REST API with certificate-based authentication, you must provide a client certificate, signed by the trusted CA mtls_trusted_ca, and a private key.

The following example uses cURL to send a REST API request:

curl --request <METHOD> --url https://<hostname-or-IP-address>:9443/<API-version>/<API-path> --cert client.pem --key client.key

Authenticate database connections

To connect to a database with certificate-based authentication, you must provide a client certificate, signed by the trusted CA mtls_trusted_ca, and a private key.

The following example shows how to connect to a Redis database with redis-cli:

redis-cli -h <hostname-or-IP-address> -p <port> --tls --cacert <redis_cert>.pem --cert redis_user.crt --key redis_user_private.key

Limitations

• Certificate-based authentication is not implemented for the Cluster Manager UI.