Modify the default administrator password

Modify the Cassandra administrator password

You can modify the Cassandra password using the following command at the shell prompt:

$ cqlsh -u cassandra -p PASSWORD
Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042.
[cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.9 | CQL spec 3.4.2 | Native protocol v4]
Use HELP for help.

cqlsh> ALTER USER cassandra with PASSWORD 'NEWPASSWORD';
cqlsh> exit

Reset the Cassandra administrator password

You can reset the administrator password by following the steps below:

• Edit the /opt/bitnami/cassandra/conf/cassandra.yaml file and replace the following lines:

    authenticator: PasswordAuthenticator
    authorizer: CassandraAuthorizer
  

  with:

    authenticator: AllowAllAuthenticator
    authorizer: AllowAllAuthorizer
  

• Restart your database:

    $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart cassandra
  

• Execute the following commands:

    $ cqlsh
    Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042.
    [cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.9 | CQL spec 3.4.2 | Native protocol v4]
    Use HELP for help.
  
    cqlsh> UPDATE system_auth.roles SET salted_hash = '$2a$10$1gMPBy9zSkDzKxdbU2v/gOslcMRPDcXVqmwQYBmi8MVgYvNdRZw/.' WHERE role = 'cassandra';
    cqlsh> exit
  

• Undo the changes made in /opt/bitnami/cassandra/conf/cassandra.yaml and restart Cassandra again. Now you can access your database using the user name cassandra and password cassandra:

    $ cqlsh -u cassandra -p cassandra
    Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042.
    [cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.9 | CQL spec 3.4.2 | Native protocol v4]
    Use HELP for help.
    cqlsh>
  

Once you have access, don’t forget to change the cassandra user account password to something else as described in the previous section. This is the default password and it’s unsecure.