Configuring Impersonation

Lists the process to permit the mapr user to impersonate other users.

Impersonation, also known as identity assertion, is one user (the mapr super user) accessing data and submitting jobs on behalf of another user.

For secure clusters, to have a request processed as an impersonated user:

1. The user submitting the request must be the mapr user and the request should have the HTTP header X-MAPR-IMPERSONATED-USER, passed in the request.

   The value of the header is the username of the impersonated user.

2. The header must also include "Authorization: Basic <base64_encoding_of_userID:pwd>" for the apiserver to authorize the request.

   Here userID is mapr and the password is the PAM Linux password for mapr user on the node on which the apiserver is running.

For example:

curl -XPOST -H "Accept: application/json" -H  "X-MAPR-IMPERSONATED-USER: m7user1" -H "Authorization: Basic bWFwcjptYXBy" -k https://10.20.30.40:8443/rest/table/create?path=%2Ftmp%2FsrcC -v

For a non-secure cluster, data-fabric requires a file for the user to impersonate in the /opt/mapr/conf/proxy directory. The logged-in user is allowed to impersonate only if the /opt/mapr/conf/proxy/<user_to_impersonate> file is present. By default, this file is created during installation for the mapr user and the root user. If the file is not present, HTTP 403 is returned to the client if the client attempts to impersonate a user who does not have the file.