Rpk Security

rpk security: ACLs, Users, Roles & Secrets

rpk security is the primary CLI command group for managing authentication and authorization on Redpanda. It replaces the deprecated rpk acl command. The group contains four subcommands — user, acl, role, and secret — that together cover the full security lifecycle: creating credentials, granting permissions, grouping permissions into roles, and storing secrets for Cloud clusters.

Redpanda security has two layers: authentication (who are you? — handled by SASL/SCRAM users) and authorization (what can you do? — handled by ACLs and RBAC roles). A freshly created SASL user has no access until ACLs are granted.

The alias rpk sec also works: rpk sec user list, rpk sec acl list, etc.

Quickstart

# 1. Create the superuser FIRST, before auth is on (else you lock yourself out)
rpk security user create admin --password 'S3cur3Pass!' --mechanism scram-sha-256

# 2. Enable SASL + ACL authorization. All three are CLUSTER config properties
#    (not redpanda.yaml node config) and none requires a broker restart.
rpk cluster config set superusers '["admin"]'
rpk cluster config set enable_sasl true               # clients must present credentials
rpk cluster config set kafka_enable_authorization true # enforce ACLs (default-deny)

# 3. Create an application user (password auto-generated if -p omitted)
rpk security user create app-user --password 'AppPass123'

# 4. List users to confirm
rpk security user list

# 5. Grant app-user read + describe on topic "events" and read on group "app-group"
rpk security acl create \
  --allow-principal app-user \
  --operation read,describe \
  --topic events

rpk security acl create \
  --allow-principal app-user \
  --operation read,describe \
  --group app-group

# 6. Also grant produce permission on "events"
rpk security acl create \
  --allow-principal app-user \
  --operation write,describe \
  --topic events

# 7. Confirm the ACLs
rpk security acl list --allow-principal app-user

# 8. (Optional) Create a role for a team
rpk security role create data-engineers
rpk security acl create --allow-role data-engineers --operation read,describe --topic 'logs-' --resource-pattern-type prefixed
rpk security role assign data-engineers --principal alice,bob
rpk security role describe data-engineers

Users (Authentication)

SASL/SCRAM users authenticate clients to Redpanda. Redpanda supports two mechanisms: SCRAM-SHA-256 (default) and SCRAM-SHA-512.

SASL is enabled with the enable_sasl cluster property (controls authentication — clients must present credentials). ACL authorization enforcement is controlled separately by kafka_enable_authorization (when true, clients without a matching allow ACL are denied; when unset it follows enable_sasl). Both are typically enabled together for a fully secured cluster. Superusers are the superusers cluster property and bypass all ACL checks. All three are cluster configuration, applied without a broker restart — set them with rpk cluster config set, or seed them in /etc/redpanda/.bootstrap.yaml before first boot.

user create

# Create with explicit password, default mechanism (SCRAM-SHA-256)
rpk security user create alice --password 'MyPass!'

# Create with SCRAM-SHA-512
rpk security user create alice --password 'MyPass!' --mechanism scram-sha-512

# Auto-generate a 30-character password (printed on creation)
rpk security user create alice

Flags:

• --password <string> — user's password (auto-generated if omitted)
• --mechanism <string> — scram-sha-256 (default) or scram-sha-512, case-insensitive

user list

rpk security user list
# Alias: rpk security user ls

user delete

rpk security user delete alice

Note: deleting a user does not delete its ACLs.

user update

Update password and/or mechanism (both --new-password and --mechanism are required):

rpk security user update alice --new-password 'NewPass!' --mechanism scram-sha-256

ACLs (Authorization)

ACLs define permissions. Each ACL has five components: principal, host, resource, operation, and permission (allow/deny). Flags on rpk security acl create are multiplicative: principals, resources, hosts, and operations all multiply together — for example, two principals × two topics × two operations = eight ACLs.

Resources: --topic, --group, --cluster, --transactional-id, --registry-global, --registry-subject.

Operations: all, read, write, create, delete, alter, describe, describe_configs, alter_configs.

Pattern types (for --resource-pattern-type): literal (exact match, default for create), prefixed (prefix match).

acl create

# Allow alice to produce and consume on topic "orders"
rpk security acl create --allow-principal alice \
  --operation write,read,describe --topic orders

# Allow a role (RBAC) to read all topics with prefix "logs-"
rpk security acl create --allow-role analytics \
  --operation read,describe \
  --topic 'logs-' --resource-pattern-type prefixed

# Allow alice to use consumer group "my-group"
rpk security acl create --allow-principal alice \
  --operation read,describe --group my-group

# Grant cluster-level ALTER to allow creating ACLs
rpk security acl create --allow-principal admin \
  --operation alter --cluster

# Allow alice to use transactional ID "txn-1"
rpk security acl create --allow-principal User:alice \
  --operation write --transactional-id txn-1

# Deny alice from a specific host
rpk security acl create --deny-principal alice \
  --deny-host 192.168.1.100 \
  --operation all --topic sensitive-data

acl list

# List all ACLs (Kafka + Schema Registry)
rpk security acl list

# Filter by principal
rpk security acl list --allow-principal alice

# Filter by topic
rpk security acl list --topic orders

# Only Schema Registry ACLs
rpk security acl list --subsystem registry

# Print filter details alongside matches
rpk security acl list --print-filters

acl delete

Delete works on a filter basis, like list. It prompts for confirmation by default (>10 matches double-confirms).

# Delete all ACLs for alice on topic "orders"
rpk security acl delete --allow-principal alice --topic orders

# Dry run first
rpk security acl delete --allow-principal alice --topic orders --dry

# Skip confirmation
rpk security acl delete --allow-principal alice --topic orders --no-confirm

Roles (RBAC)

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) is an Enterprise feature on self-hosted clusters. Roles let you attach a bundle of ACL permissions to a name, then assign that name to many principals. The prefix RedpandaRole: is used in ACL principals for role-bound ACLs.

role create / delete / list

rpk security role create data-engineers
rpk security role list
rpk security role list --prefix "data-"     # filter by name prefix
rpk security role list --principal alice    # roles assigned to alice
rpk security role delete data-engineers     # prompts for confirmation; use --no-confirm to skip

role assign / unassign

# Assign a single user
rpk security role assign data-engineers --principal alice

# Assign multiple users (comma-separated)
rpk security role assign data-engineers --principal alice,bob

# Assign a group
rpk security role assign data-engineers --principal Group:engineering

# Unassign
rpk security role unassign data-engineers --principal alice

The --principal flag accepts <PrincipalPrefix>:<name> or bare name (defaults to User:).

role describe

Shows the role's ACL bindings and members.

rpk security role describe data-engineers
rpk security role describe data-engineers --print-permissions   # ACLs only
rpk security role describe data-engineers --print-members       # members only

Binding ACLs to a role

After creating a role, attach ACLs using --allow-role in rpk security acl create:

rpk security role create data-engineers
rpk security acl create \
  --allow-role data-engineers \
  --operation read,describe \
  --topic 'events-' --resource-pattern-type prefixed

Secrets (Cloud Only)

rpk security secret manages secrets for Redpanda Cloud clusters. Secret names must start with an uppercase letter and contain only uppercase letters, digits, and underscores (max 255 chars). The secret subcommand is only available for cloud clusters.

Available scopes: redpanda_connect, redpanda_cluster.

# Create a secret
rpk security secret create \
  --name MY_DB_PASSWORD \
  --value 'secret-value-here' \
  --scopes redpanda_connect

# List secrets (optionally filter by substring)
rpk security secret list
rpk security secret list --name-contains DB

# Update a secret (overwrites value and scopes)
rpk security secret update \
  --name MY_DB_PASSWORD \
  --value 'new-secret-value' \
  --scopes redpanda_connect,redpanda_cluster

# Delete a secret
rpk security secret delete --name MY_DB_PASSWORD

Authentication Mechanisms

Beyond SASL/SCRAM, Redpanda supports several authentication mechanisms. SCRAM, PLAIN, and mTLS are Community Edition; OAUTHBEARER/OIDC and GSSAPI (Kerberos) require an Enterprise license.

• SASL/SCRAM (Community) — default; sasl_mechanisms includes SCRAM. See users.md.
• SASL/PLAIN (Community) — sasl_mechanisms includes PLAIN.
• SASL/OAUTHBEARER (OIDC) (Enterprise) — sasl_mechanisms includes OAUTHBEARER; configured via oidc_discovery_url, oidc_token_audience, oidc_principal_mapping (default $.sub), oidc_clock_skew_tolerance, oidc_token_expire_disconnect, oidc_keys_refresh_interval.
• SASL/GSSAPI (Kerberos) (Enterprise) — sasl_mechanisms includes GSSAPI; configured via sasl_kerberos_keytab, sasl_kerberos_config, sasl_kerberos_principal, sasl_kerberos_principal_mapping.
• mTLS (Community) — listener authentication_method: mtls_identity; principal extracted via kafka_mtls_principal_mapping_rules.
• HTTP APIs — http_authentication cluster property: BASIC (Community) and OIDC (Enterprise); admin_api_require_auth gates Admin API auth.

enable_sasl toggles Kafka API authentication; kafka_enable_authorization toggles ACL enforcement. See authentication.md for full config keys, principal-mapping rule syntax, and connecting rpk with OIDC.

Enterprise Security Features

The following authorization/security differentiators require a valid Enterprise license. Verify license/violation status with rpk cluster license info.

• RBAC — rpk security role (Enterprise on self-hosted). See roles.md.
• GBAC — grant permissions to OIDC groups via Group:<name> ACL principals or role assignments; oidc_group_claim_path (default $.groups), nested_group_behavior (none/suffix).
• Audit Logging — audit_enabled; topic-shaping (audit_log_num_partitions, audit_log_replication_factor) must be set before enabling; audit_enabled_event_types, audit_excluded_topics, audit_excluded_principals, audit_client_max_buffer_size, audit_queue_max_buffer_size_per_shard.
• Server-side Schema ID Validation — enable_schema_id_validation (none/redpanda/compat); per-topic redpanda.{key,value}.schema.id.validation and redpanda.{key,value}.subject.name.strategy.
• Schema Registry Authorization — schema_registry_enable_authorization; ACLs via --registry-global / --registry-subject.
• FIPS Compliance — broker property fips_mode (disabled/enabled/permissive) with openssl_config_file, openssl_module_directory.

See enterprise-security.md for the full config-key tables, enable/disable commands, license management (rpk generate license, rpk cluster license set), and expiration behavior per feature.

SASL + ACL Bootstrapping Flow

When enabling SASL on a new cluster:

1. Create the admin user via rpk security user create admin --password '...', using whatever auth the Admin API listener currently requires. Do this first — enabling SASL before a superuser exists locks you out.
2. rpk cluster config set superusers '["admin"]'.
3. rpk cluster config set enable_sasl true (authentication) and rpk cluster config set kafka_enable_authorization true (ACL enforcement). These are cluster properties; no broker restart.
4. Create application users with rpk security user create (now authenticating as admin).
5. Grant ACLs to each application user with rpk security acl create.
6. Connect clients using SASL credentials.

For a cluster provisioned from scratch, seed steps 2–3 in /etc/redpanda/.bootstrap.yaml.

Without ACLs, newly created users cannot access any resource.

Common ACL Recipes

Reference Directory

• users.md: rpk security user command reference — create/list/delete/update, SCRAM mechanisms, superusers, and the authn/authz distinction.
• acls.md: rpk security acl command reference — create/list/delete in depth, all flags, principal formats, resource types, operations, pattern types, and common grant recipes.
• roles.md: rpk security role RBAC reference (Enterprise) — create/list/describe/delete, assign/unassign, binding ACLs to roles, and rpk security secret overview.
• authentication.md: authentication mechanisms — SASL/SCRAM, SASL/PLAIN, OAUTHBEARER/OIDC (Enterprise), GSSAPI/Kerberos (Enterprise), mTLS principal mapping, and HTTP Basic/OIDC. Full cluster/broker config keys, principal-mapping rule syntax, and connecting rpk with OIDC.
• enterprise-security.md: Enterprise security differentiators and their nested config keys — Audit Logging, GBAC, server-side Schema ID Validation, Schema Registry Authorization, FIPS Compliance — plus Enterprise license management (rpk cluster license info/set, rpk generate license) and per-feature expiration behavior.