Infinispan server is a managed, distributed, and clusterable data grid that provides elastic scaling and high performance access to caches from multiple endpoints, such as Hot Rod and REST.

1. Getting Started with Infinispan Server

Quickly set up Infinispan Server and learn the basics.

Get started icon You can also visit our Get Started with Infinispan tutorial and run the server image in 4 easy steps.

1.1. Infinispan Server Requirements

Infinispan Server requires a Java Virtual Machine and works with Java 11 and later.

Infinispan Server does not support Java 8. However, you can use Java 8 with Hot Rod Java clients.

1.2. Downloading Server Distributions

The Infinispan server distribution is an archive of Java libraries (JAR files), configuration files, and a data directory.

Procedure
  1. Download Infinispan 11.0 Server from Infinispan downloads.

  2. Run the sha1sum command with the server download archive as the argument, for example:

    $ sha1sum infinispan-server-${version}.zip
  3. Compare with the SHA-1 checksum value on the Infinispan downloads page.

Reference

The Infinispan Server README, available in the distribution, provides example commands for running the server, describes folders in the $ISPN_HOME directory, and lists system properties you can use to customize the filesystem.

1.3. Installing Infinispan Server

Install the Infinispan Server distribution on a host system.

Prerequisites

Download a Infinispan Server distribution archive.

Procedure
  • Use any appropriate tool to extract the Infinispan Server archive to the host filesystem.

$ unzip infinispan-server-11.0.19.Final.zip

The resulting directory is your $ISPN_HOME.

1.4. Creating and Modifying Users

Infinispan Server requires users to authenticate against a default property realm. Before you can access Infinispan Server, you must add credentials by creating at least one user and a password. You can also add and modify the security authorization groups to which users belong.

Procedure
  1. Open a terminal in $ISPN_HOME.

  2. Create and modify Infinispan users with the user command.

Run help user for more details about using the command.

Creating users and passwords
  • Linux

    $ bin/cli.sh user create myuser -p "qwer1234!"
  • Microsoft Windows

    $ bin\cli.bat user create myuser -p "qwer1234!"
Creating users with group membership
  • Linux

    $ bin/cli.sh user create myuser -p "qwer1234!" -g supervisor,reader,writer
  • Microsoft Windows

    $ bin\cli.bat user create myuser -p "qwer1234!" -g supervisor,reader,writer

1.5. Starting Infinispan Server

Run Infinispan Server on your local host.

Prerequisites
  • Create at least one Infinispan user.

Procedure
  1. Open a terminal in $ISPN_HOME.

  2. Run Infinispan Server with the server script.

    Linux
    $ bin/server.sh
    Microsoft Windows
    bin\server.bat

Infinispan Server is running successfully when it logs the following messages:

ISPN080004: Protocol SINGLE_PORT listening on 127.0.0.1:11222
ISPN080034: Server '...' listening on http://127.0.0.1:11222
ISPN080001: Infinispan Server <version> started in <mm>ms
Verification
  1. Open 127.0.0.1:11222/console/ in any browser.

  2. Enter your credentials at the prompt then continue to Infinispan Console.

1.6. Verifying Cluster Views

Infinispan nodes on the same network automatically discover each other and form clusters.

Complete this procedure to observe cluster discovery with the MPING protocol in the default TCP stack with locally running Infinispan Server instances. If you want to adjust cluster transport for custom network requirements, see the documentation for setting up Infinispan clusters.

This procedure is intended to demonstrate the principle of cluster discovery and is not intended for production environments. Doing things like specifying a port offset on the command line is not a reliable way to configure cluster transport for production.

Prerequisites

Have one instance of Infinispan Server running.

Procedure
  1. Open a terminal in $ISPN_HOME.

  2. Copy the root directory to server2.

    $ cp -r server server2
  3. Specify a port offset and the server2 directory.

    $ bin/server.sh -o 100 -s server2
Verification

You can view cluster membership in the console at 127.0.0.1:11222/console/cluster-membership.

Infinispan also logs the following messages when nodes join clusters:

INFO  [org.infinispan.CLUSTER] (jgroups-11,<server_hostname>)
ISPN000094: Received new cluster view for channel cluster:
[<server_hostname>|3] (2) [<server_hostname>, <server2_hostname>]

INFO  [org.infinispan.CLUSTER] (jgroups-11,<server_hostname>)
ISPN100000: Node <server2_hostname> joined the cluster

1.7. Shutting Down Infinispan Server

Stop individually running servers or bring down clusters gracefully.

Procedure
  1. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  2. Shut down Infinispan Server in one of the following ways:

    • Stop all nodes in a cluster with the shutdown cluster command, for example:

      [//containers/default]> shutdown cluster

      This command saves cluster state to the data folder for each node in the cluster. If you use a cache store, the shutdown cluster command also persists all data in the cache.

    • Stop individual server instances with the shutdown server command and the server hostname, for example:

      [//containers/default]> shutdown server <my_server01>

The shutdown server command does not wait for rebalancing operations to complete, which can lead to data loss if you specify multiple hostnames at the same time.

Run help shutdown for more details about using the command.

Verification

Infinispan logs the following messages when you shut down servers:

ISPN080002: Infinispan Server stopping
ISPN000080: Disconnecting JGroups channel cluster
ISPN000390: Persisted state, version=<$version> timestamp=YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS
ISPN080003: Infinispan Server stopped

1.7.1. Restarting Infinispan Clusters

When you bring Infinispan clusters back online after shutting them down, you should wait for the cluster to be available before adding or removing nodes or modifying cluster state.

If you shutdown clustered nodes with the shutdown server command, you must restart each server in reverse order.
For example, if you shutdown server1 and then shutdown server2, you should first start server2 and then start server1.

If you shutdown a cluster with the shutdown cluster command, clusters become fully operational only after all nodes rejoin.
You can restart nodes in any order but the cluster remains in DEGRADED state until all nodes that were joined before shutdown are running.

1.8. Infinispan Server Filesystem

Infinispan Server uses the following folders on the host filesystem under $ISPN_HOME:

├── bin
├── boot
├── docs
├── lib
├── server
└── static

See the Infinispan Server README, available in the distribution, for descriptions of the each folder in your $ISPN_HOME directory as well as system properties you can use to customize the filesystem.

1.8.1. Server Root Directory

Apart from resources in the bin and docs folders, the only folder under $ISPN_HOME that you should interact with is the server root directory, which is named server by default.

You can create multiple nodes under the same $ISPN_HOME directory or in different directories, but each Infinispan Server instance must have its own server root directory. For example, a cluster of 5 nodes could have the following server root directories on the filesystem:

├── server
├── server1
├── server2
├── server3
└── server4

Each server root directory should contain the following folders:

├── server
│   ├── conf
│   ├── data
│   ├── lib
│   └── log

server/conf

Holds infinispan.xml configuration files for a Infinispan Server instance.

Infinispan separates configuration into two layers:

Dynamic

Create mutable cache configurations for data scalability.
Infinispan Server permanently saves the caches you create at runtime along with the cluster state that is distributed across nodes. Each joining node receives a complete cluster state that Infinispan Server synchronizes across all nodes whenever changes occur.

Static

Add configuration to infinispan.xml for underlying server mechanisms such as cluster transport, security, and shared datasources.

server/data

Provides internal storage that Infinispan Server uses to maintain cluster state.

Never directly delete or modify content in server/data.

Modifying files such as caches.xml while the server is running can cause corruption. Deleting content can result in an incorrect state, which means clusters cannot restart after shutdown.

server/lib

Contains extension JAR files for custom filters, custom event listeners, JDBC drivers, custom ServerTask implementations, and so on.

server/log

Holds Infinispan Server log files.

2. Configuring Infinispan Server Networking

Infinispan servers let you configure interfaces and ports to make endpoints available across your network.

By default, Infinispan servers multiplex endpoints to a single TCP/IP port and automatically detect protocols of inbound client requests.

2.1. Server Interfaces

Infinispan servers can use different strategies for binding to IP addresses.

2.1.1. Address Strategy

Uses an inet-address strategy that maps a single public interface to the IPv4 loopback address (127.0.0.1).

<interfaces>
  <interface name="public">
    <inet-address value="${infinispan.bind.address:127.0.0.1}"/>
  </interface>
</interfaces>

You can use the CLI -b argument or the infinispan.bind.address property to select a specific address from the command-line. See Changing the Default Bind Address.

2.1.2. Loopback Strategy

Selects a loopback address.

  • IPv4 the address block 127.0.0.0/8 is reserved for loopback addresses.

  • IPv6 the address block ::1 is the only loopback address.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <loopback/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.3. Non-Loopback Strategy

Selects a non-loopback address.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <non-loopback/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.4. Network Address Strategy

Selects networks based on IP address.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <inet-address value="10.1.2.3"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.5. Any Address Strategy

Selects the INADDR_ANY wildcard address. As a result Infinispan servers listen on all interfaces.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <any-address/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

Selects a link-local IP address.

  • IPv4 the address block 169.254.0.0/16 (169.254.0.0 – 169.254.255.255) is reserved for link-local addressing.

  • IPv6 the address block fe80::/10 is reserved for link-local unicast addressing.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <inet-address value="10.1.2.3"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.7. Site Local Strategy

Selects a site-local (private) IP address.

  • IPv4 the address blocks 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16 are reserved for site-local addressing.

  • IPv6 the address block fc00::/7 is reserved for site-local unicast addressing.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <inet-address value="10.1.2.3"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.8. Match Host Strategy

Resolves the host name and selects one of the IP addresses that is assigned to any network interface.

Infinispan servers enumerate all available operating system interfaces to locate IP addresses resolved from the host name in your configuration.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <match-host value="my_host_name"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.9. Match Interface Strategy

Selects an IP address assigned to a network interface that matches a regular expression.

Infinispan servers enumerate all available operating system interfaces to locate the interface name in your configuration.

Use regular expressions with this strategy for additional flexibility.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <match-interface value="eth0"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.10. Match Address Strategy

Similar to inet-address but selects an IP address using a regular expression.

Infinispan servers enumerate all available operating system interfaces to locate the IP address in your configuration.

Use regular expressions with this strategy for additional flexibility.

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <match-address value="132\..*"/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.11. Fallback Strategy

Interface configurations can include multiple strategies. Infinispan servers try each strategy in the declared order.

For example, with the following configuration, Infinispan servers first attempt to match a host, then an IP address, and then fall back to the INADDR_ANY wildcard address:

<interfaces>
    <interface name="public">
        <match-host value="my_host_name"/>
        <match-address value="132\..*"/>
        <any-address/>
    </interface>
</interfaces>

2.1.12. Changing the Default Bind Address for Infinispan Servers

You can use the server -b switch or the infinispan.bind.address system property to bind to a different address.

For example, bind the public interface to 127.0.0.2 as follows:

Linux
$ bin/server.sh -b 127.0.0.2
Windows
bin\server.bat -b 127.0.0.2

2.2. Socket Bindings

Socket bindings map endpoint connectors to server interfaces and ports.

By default, Infinispan servers provide the following socket bindings:

<socket-bindings default-interface="public" port-offset="${infinispan.socket.binding.port-offset:0}">
    <socket-binding name="default" port="${infinispan.bind.port:11222}"/>
    <socket-binding name="memcached" port="11221"/>
</socket-bindings>
  • socket-bindings declares the default interface and port offset.

  • default binds to hotrod and rest connectors to the default port 11222.

  • memcached binds the memcached connector to port 11221.

    The memcached endpoint is disabled by default.

To override the default interface for socket-binding declarations, specify the interface attribute.

For example, you add an interface declaration named "private":

<interfaces>
  ...
  <interface name="private">
    <inet-address value="10.1.2.3"/>
  </interface>
</interfaces>

You can then specify interface="private" in a socket-binding declaration to bind to the private IP address, as follows:

<socket-bindings default-interface="public" port-offset="${infinispan.socket.binding.port-offset:0}">
  ...
  <socket-binding name="private_binding" interface="private" port="1234"/>
</socket-bindings>

2.2.1. Specifying Port Offsets

Configure port offsets with Infinispan servers when running multiple instances on the same host. The default port offset is 0.

Use the -o switch with the Infinispan CLI or the infinispan.socket.binding.port-offset system property to set port offsets.

For example, start a server instance with an offset of 100 as follows. With the default configuration, this results in the Infinispan server listening on port 11322.

Linux
$ bin/server.sh -o 100
Windows
bin\server.bat -o 100

2.3. Infinispan Protocol Handling

Infinispan servers use a router connector to expose multiple protocols over the same TCP port, 11222. Using a single port for multiple protocols simplifies configuration and management and increases security by reducing the attack surface for unauthorized users.

Infinispan servers handle HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and Hot Rod protocol requests via port 11222 as follows:

HTTP/1.1 upgrade headers

Client requests can include the HTTP/1.1 upgrade header field to initiate HTTP/1.1 connections with Infinispan servers. Client applications can then send the Upgrade: protocol header field, where protocol is a Infinispan server endpoint.

Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN)/Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Client applications specify Server Name Indication (SNI) mappings for Infinispan server endpoints to negotiate protocols in a secure manner.

Automatic Hot Rod detection

Client requests that include Hot Rod headers automatically route to Hot Rod endpoints if the single port router configuration includes Hot Rod.

2.3.1. Configuring Clients for ALPN

Configure clients to provide ALPN messages for protocol negotiation during TLS handshakes with Infinispan servers.

Prerequisites
  • Enable Infinispan server endpoints with encryption.

Procedure
  1. Provide your client application with the appropriate libraries to handle ALPN/TLS exchanges with Infinispan servers.

    Infinispan uses Wildfly OpenSSL bindings for Java.

  2. Configure clients with trust stores as appropriate.

Programmatically
ConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
      .addServers("127.0.0.1:11222");

builder.security().ssl().enable()
      .trustStoreFileName("truststore.pkcs12")
      .trustStorePassword(DEFAULT_TRUSTSTORE_PASSWORD.toCharArray());

RemoteCacheManager remoteCacheManager = new RemoteCacheManager(builder.build());
RemoteCache<String, String> cache = remoteCacheManager.getCache("default"");
Hot Rod client properties
infinispan.client.hotrod.server_list = 127.0.0.1:11222
infinispan.client.hotrod.use_ssl = true
infinispan.client.hotrod.trust_store_file_name = truststore.pkcs12
infinispan.client.hotrod.trust_store_password = trust_store_password

3. Configuring Infinispan Server Endpoints

Infinispan servers provide listener endpoints that handle requests from remote client applications.

3.1. Infinispan Endpoints

Infinispan endpoints expose the CacheManager interface over different connector protocols so you can remotely access data and perform operations to manage and maintain Infinispan clusters.

You can define multiple endpoint connectors on different socket bindings.

3.1.1. Hot Rod

Hot Rod is a binary TCP client-server protocol designed to provide faster data access and improved performance in comparison to text-based protocols.

Infinispan provides Hot Rod client libraries in Java, C++, C#, Node.js and other programming languages.

Topology state transfer

Infinispan uses topology caches to provide clients with cluster views. Topology caches contain entries that map internal JGroups transport addresses to exposed Hot Rod endpoints.

When client send requests, Infinispan servers compare the topology ID in request headers with the topology ID from the cache. Infinispan servers send new topology views if client have older topology IDs.

Cluster topology views allow Hot Rod clients to immediately detect when nodes join and leave, which enables dynamic load balancing and failover.

In distributed cache modes, the consistent hashing algorithm also makes it possible to route Hot Rod client requests directly to primary owners.

3.1.2. REST

Infinispan exposes a RESTful interface that allows HTTP clients to access data, monitor and maintain clusters, and perform administrative operations.

You can use standard HTTP load balancers to provide clients with load balancing and failover capabilities. However, HTTP load balancers maintain static cluster views and require manual updates when cluster topology changes occur.

3.1.3. Memcached

Infinispan provides an implementation of the Memcached text protocol for remote client access.

The Memcached endpoint is deprecated and planned for removal in a future release.

The Infinispan Memcached endpoint supports clustering with replicated and distributed cache modes.

There are some Memcached client implementations, such as the Cache::Memcached Perl client, that can offer load balancing and failover detection capabilities with static lists of Infinispan server addresses that require manual updates when cluster topology changes occur.

3.1.4. Protocol Comparison

Hot Rod HTTP / REST Memcached

Topology-aware

Y

N

N

Hash-aware

Y

N

N

Encryption

Y

Y

N

Authentication

Y

Y

N

Conditional ops

Y

Y

Y

Bulk ops

Y

N

N

Transactions

Y

N

N

Listeners

Y

N

N

Query

Y

Y

N

Execution

Y

N

N

Cross-site failover

Y

N

N

3.2. Endpoint Connectors

You configure Infinispan server endpoints with connector declarations that specify socket bindings, authentication mechanisms, and encryption configuration.

The default endpoint connector configuration is as follows:

<endpoints socket-binding="default">
   <hotrod-connector name="hotrod"/>
   <rest-connector name="rest"/>
   <memcached-connector socket-binding="memcached"/>
</endpoints>
  • endpoints contains endpoint connector declarations and defines global configuration for endpoints such as default socket bindings, security realms, and whether clients must present valid TLS certificates.

  • <hotrod-connector name="hotrod"/> declares a Hot Rod connector.

  • <rest-connector name="rest"/> declares a Hot Rod connector.

  • <memcached-connector socket-binding="memcached"/> declares a Memcached connector that uses the memcached socket binding.

Reference

urn:infinispan:server schema provides all available endpoint configuration.

3.2.1. Hot Rod Connectors

Hot Rod connector declarations enable Hot Rod servers.

<hotrod-connector name="hotrod">
  <topology-state-transfer />
  <authentication>
    ...
  </authentication>
  <encryption>
    ...
  </encryption>
</hotrod-connector>
  • name="hotrod" logically names the Hot Rod connector.

  • topology-state-transfer tunes the state transfer operations that provide Hot Rod clients with cluster topology.

  • authentication configures SASL authentication mechanisms.

  • encryption configures TLS settings for client connections.

Reference

urn:infinispan:server schema provides all available Hot Rod connector configuration.

3.2.2. REST Connectors

REST connector declarations enable REST servers.

<rest-connector name="rest">
  <authentication>
    ...
  </authentication>
  <cors-rules>
    ...
  </cors-rules>
  <encryption>
    ...
  </encryption>
</rest-connector>
  • name="rest" logically names the REST connector.

  • authentication configures authentication mechanisms.

  • cors-rules specifies CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing) rules for cross-domain requests.

  • encryption configures TLS settings for client connections.

Reference

urn:infinispan:server schema provides all available REST connector configuration.

3.2.3. Memcached Connectors

Memcached connector declarations enable Memcached servers.

Infinispan servers do not enable Memcached connectors by default.

<memcached-connector name="memcached" socket-binding="memcached" cache="mycache" />
  • name="memcached" logically names the Memcached connector.

  • socket-binding="memcached" declares a unique socket binding for the Memcached connector.

  • cache="mycache" names the cache that the Memcached connector exposes. The default is memcachedCache.

    Memcached connectors expose a single cache only. To expose multiple caches through the Memcached endpoint, you must declare additional connectors. Each Memcached connector must also have a unique socket binding.

Reference

urn:infinispan:server schema provides all available Memcached connector configuration.

3.3. Infinispan Server Ports and Protocols

Infinispan Server exposes endpoints on your network for remote client access.

Port Protocol Description

11222

TCP

Hot Rod and REST endpoint

11221

TCP

Memcached endpoint, which is disabled by default.

3.3.1. Configuring Network Firewalls for Remote Connections

Adjust any firewall rules to allow traffic between the server and external clients.

Procedure

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) workstations, for example, you can allow traffic to port 11222 with firewalld as follows:

# firewall-cmd --add-port=11222/tcp --permanent
success
# firewall-cmd --list-ports | grep 11222
11222/tcp

To configure firewall rules that apply across a network, you can use the nftables utility.

4. Securing Access to Infinispan Servers

Configure authentication and encryption mechanisms to secure access to Infinispan servers and protect your data.

4.1. Defining Infinispan Server Security Realms

Security realms provide identity, encryption, authentication, and authorization information to Infinispan server endpoints.

4.1.1. Property Realms

Property realms use property files to define users and groups.

users.properties maps usernames to passwords in plain-text format. Passwords can also be pre-digested if you use the DIGEST-MD5 SASL mechanism or Digest HTTP mechanism.

myuser=a_password
user2=another_password

groups.properties maps users to roles.

myuser=supervisor,reader,writer
user2=supervisor
Property realm configuration
<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <properties-realm groups-attribute="Roles"> (1)
            <user-properties path="users.properties" (2)
                             relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path" (3)
                             plain-text="true"/> (4)
            <group-properties path="groups.properties" (5)
                              relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path"/>
         </properties-realm>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Defines groups as roles for Infinispan server authorization.
2 Specifies the users.properties file.
3 Specifies that the file is relative to the $ISPN_HOME/server/conf directory.
4 Specifies that the passwords in users.properties are in plain-text format.
5 Specifies the groups.properties file.
Supported authentication mechanisms

Property realms support the following authentication mechanisms:

  • SASL: PLAIN, DIGEST-*, and SCRAM-*

  • HTTP (REST): Basic and Digest

Creating and Modifying Users

Infinispan Server requires users to authenticate against a default property realm. Before you can access Infinispan Server, you must add credentials by creating at least one user and a password. You can also add and modify the security authorization groups to which users belong.

Procedure
  1. Open a terminal in $ISPN_HOME.

  2. Create and modify Infinispan users with the user command.

Run help user for more details about using the command.

Creating users and passwords
  • Linux

    $ bin/cli.sh user create myuser -p "qwer1234!"
  • Microsoft Windows

    $ bin\cli.bat user create myuser -p "qwer1234!"
Creating users with group membership
  • Linux

    $ bin/cli.sh user create myuser -p "qwer1234!" -g supervisor,reader,writer
  • Microsoft Windows

    $ bin\cli.bat user create myuser -p "qwer1234!" -g supervisor,reader,writer

4.1.2. LDAP Realms

LDAP realms connect to LDAP servers, such as OpenLDAP, Red Hat Directory Server, Apache Directory Server, or Microsoft Active Directory, to authenticate users and obtain membership information.

LDAP servers can have different entry layouts, depending on the type of server and deployment. For this reason, LDAP realm configuration is complex. It is beyond the scope of this document to provide examples for all possibile configurations.

LDAP realm configuration
<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
        <ldap-realm name="ldap" (1)
                    url="ldap://my-ldap-server:10389" (2)
                    principal="uid=admin,ou=People,dc=infinispan,dc=org" (3)
                    credential="strongPassword"
                    connection-timeout="3000" read-timeout="30000" (4)
                    connection-pooling="true" referral-mode="ignore"
                    page-size="30"
                    direct-verification="true"> (5)
            <identity-mapping rdn-identifier="uid" (6)
                              search-dn="ou=People,dc=infinispan,dc=org"> (7)
               <attribute-mapping> (8)
                  <attribute from="cn"
                             to="Roles"
                             filter="(&amp;(objectClass=groupOfNames)(member={1}))"
                             filter-dn="ou=Roles,dc=infinispan,dc=org"/>
               </attribute-mapping>
            </identity-mapping>
         </ldap-realm>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Names the LDAP realm.
2 Specifies the LDAP server connection URL.
3 Specifies a principal and credentials to connect to the LDAP server.

The principal for LDAP connections must have necessary privileges to perform LDAP queries and access specific attributes.

4 Optionally tunes LDAP server connections by specifying connection timeouts and so on.
5 Verifies user credentials. Infinispan attempts to connect to the LDAP server using the configured credentials. Alternatively, you can use the user-password-mapper element that specifies a password.
6 Maps LDAP entries to identities. The rdn-identifier specifies an LDAP attribute that finds the user entry based on a provided identifier, which is typically a username; for example, the uid or sAMAccountName attribute.
7 Defines a starting context that limits searches to the LDAP subtree that contains the user entries.
8 Retrieves all the groups of which the user is a member. There are typically two ways in which membership information is stored:
  • Under group entries that usually have class groupOfNames in the member attribute. In this case, you can use an attribute filter as in the preceding example configuration. This filter searches for entries that match the supplied filter, which locates groups with a member attribute equal to the user’s DN. The filter then extracts the group entry’s CN as specified by from, and adds it to the user’s Roles.

  • In the user entry in the memberOf attribute. In this case you should use an attribute reference such as the following:

    <attribute-reference reference="memberOf" from="cn" to="Roles" />

    This reference gets all memberOf attributes from the user’s entry, extracts the CN as specified by from, and adds them to the user’s Roles.

Supported authentication mechanisms

LDAP realms support the following authentication mechanisms directly:

  • SASL: PLAIN, DIGEST-*, and SCRAM-*

  • HTTP (REST): Basic and Digest

LDAP Realm Principal Rewriting

Some SASL authentication mechanisms, such as GSSAPI, GS2-KRB5 and Negotiate, supply a username that needs to be cleaned up before you can use it to search LDAP servers.

<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <ldap-realm name="ldap"
                     url="ldap://${org.infinispan.test.host.address}:10389"
                     principal="uid=admin,ou=People,dc=infinispan,dc=org"
                     credential="strongPassword">
            <name-rewriter> (1)
               <regex-principal-transformer name="domain-remover"
                                            pattern="(.*)@INFINISPAN\.ORG"
                                            replacement="$1"/>
            </name-rewriter>
            <identity-mapping rdn-identifier="uid"
                              search-dn="ou=People,dc=infinispan,dc=org">
               <attribute-mapping>
                  <attribute from="cn" to="Roles"
                             filter="(&amp;(objectClass=groupOfNames)(member={1}))"
                             filter-dn="ou=Roles,dc=infinispan,dc=org" />
               </attribute-mapping>
               <user-password-mapper from="userPassword" />
            </identity-mapping>
         </ldap-realm>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Defines a rewriter that extracts the username from the principal using a regular expression.

4.1.3. Trust Store Realms

Trust store realms use keystores that contain the public certificates of all clients that are allowed to connect to Infinispan server.

<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <server-identities>
            <ssl>
               <keystore path="server.p12" (1)
                         relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path" (2)
                         keystore-password="secret" (3)
                         alias="server"/> (4)
            </ssl>
         </server-identities>
         <truststore-realm path="trust.p12" (5)
                           relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path"
                           keystore-password="secret"/>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Provides an SSL server identity with a keystore that contains server certificates.
2 Specifies that the file is relative to the $ISPN_HOME/server/conf directory.
3 Specifies a keystore password.
4 Specifies a keystore alias.
5 Provides a keystore that contains public certificates of all clients.
Supported authentication mechanisms

Trust store realms work with client-certificate authentication mechanisms:

  • SASL: EXTERNAL

  • HTTP (REST): CLIENT_CERT

4.1.4. Token Realms

Token realms use external services to validate tokens and require providers that are compatible with RFC-7662 (OAuth2 Token Introspection), such as KeyCloak.

<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <token-realm name="token"
                      auth-server-url="https://oauth-server/auth/"> (1)
            <oauth2-introspection
                    introspection-url="https://oauth-server/auth/realms/infinispan/protocol/openid-connect/token/introspect" (2)
                    client-id="infinispan-server" (3)
                    client-secret="1fdca4ec-c416-47e0-867a-3d471af7050f"/> (4)
         </token-realm>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Specifies the URL of the authentication server.
2 Specifies the URL of the token introspection endpoint.
3 Names the client identifier for Infinispan server.
4 Specifies the client secret for Infinispan server.
Supported authentication mechanisms

Token realms support the following authentication mechanisms:

  • SASL: OAUTHBEARER

  • HTTP (REST): Bearer

4.2. Creating Infinispan Server Identities

Server identities are defined within security realms and enable Infinispan servers to prove their identity to clients.

4.2.1. Setting Up SSL Identities

SSL identities use keystores that contain either a certificate or chain of certificates.

If security realms contain SSL identities, Infinispan servers automatically enable encryption for the endpoints that use those security realms.

Procedure
  1. Create a keystore for Infinispan server.

    Infinispan server supports the following keystore formats: JKS, JCEKS, PKCS12, BKS, BCFKS and UBER.

    In production environments, server certificates should be signed by a trusted Certificate Authority, either Root or Intermediate CA.

  2. Add the keystore to the $ISPN_HOME/server/conf directory.

  3. Add a server-identities definition to the Infinispan server security realm.

  4. Specify the name of the keystore along with the password and alias.

SSL Identity Configuration

The following example configures an SSL identity for Infinispan server:

<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <server-identities> (1)
            <ssl> (2)
               <keystore path="server.p12" (3)
                         relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path" (4)
                         keystore-password="secret" (5)
                         alias="server"/> (6)
            </ssl>
         </server-identities>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Defines identities for Infinispan server.
2 Configures an SSL identity for Infinispan server.
3 Names a keystore that contains Infinispan server SSL certificates.
4 Specifies that the keystore is relative to the server/conf directory in $ISPN_HOME.
5 Specifies a keystore password.
6 Specifies a keystore alias.
Automatically Generating Keystores

Configure Infinispan servers to automatically generate keystores at startup.

Automatically generated keystores:

  • Should not be used in production environments.

  • Are generated whenever necessary; for example, while obtaining the first connection from a client.

  • Contain certificates that you can use directly in Hot Rod clients.

Procedure
  1. Include the generate-self-signed-certificate-host attribute for the keystore element in the server configuration.

  2. Specify a hostname for the server certificate as the value.

SSL server identity with a generated keystore
<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <server-identities>
            <ssl>
               <keystore path="server.p12"
                         relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path"
                         keystore-password="secret"
                         alias="server"
                         generate-self-signed-certificate-host="localhost"/> (1)
            </ssl>
         </server-identities>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 generates a keystore using localhost
Tuning SSL Protocols and Cipher Suites

You can configure the SSL engine, via the Infinispan server SSL identity, to use specific protocols and ciphers.

You must ensure that you set the correct ciphers for the protocol features you want to use; for example HTTP/2 ALPN.

Procedure
  1. Add the engine element to your Infinispan server SSL identity.

  2. Configure the SSL engine with the enabled-protocols and enabled-ciphersuites attributes.

SSL engine configuration
<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0
          https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <server-identities>
            <ssl>
               <keystore path="server.p12"
                         relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path"
                         keystore-password="secret" alias="server"/>
               <engine enabled-protocols="TLSv1.2 TLSv1.1" (1)
                       enabled-ciphersuites="SSL_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (2)
                       SSL_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256"/>
            </ssl>
         </server-identities>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Configures the SSL engine to use TLS v1 and v2 protocols.
2 Configures the SSL engine to use the specified cipher suites.

4.2.2. Setting Up Kerberos Identities

Kerberos identities use keytab files that contain service principal names and encrypted keys, derived from Kerberos passwords.

keytab files can contain both user and service account principals. However, Infinispan servers use service account principals only. As a result, Infinispan servers can provide identity to clients and allow clients to authenticate with Kerberos servers.

In most cases, you create unique principals for the Hot Rod and REST connectors. For example, you have a "datagrid" server in the "INFINISPAN.ORG" domain. In this case you should create the following service principals:

  • hotrod/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG identifies the Hot Rod service.

  • HTTP/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG identifies the REST service.

Procedure
  1. Create keytab files for the Hot Rod and REST services.

    Linux
    $ ktutil
    ktutil:  addent -password -p datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG -k 1 -e aes256-cts
    Password for datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG: [enter your password]
    ktutil:  wkt http.keytab
    ktutil:  quit
    Microsoft Windows
    $ ktpass -princ HTTP/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG -pass * -mapuser INFINISPAN\USER_NAME
    $ ktab -k http.keytab -a HTTP/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG
  2. Copy the keytab files to the $ISPN_HOME/server/conf directory.

  3. Add a server-identities definition to the Infinispan server security realm.

  4. Specify the location of keytab files that provide service principals to Hot Rod and REST connectors.

  5. Name the Kerberos service principals.

Kerberos Identity Configuration

The following example configures Kerberos identities for Infinispan server:

<security xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
          xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0">
   <security-realms>
      <security-realm name="default">
         <server-identities> (1)
            <kerberos keytab-path="hotrod.keytab" (2)
                      principal="hotrod/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG" (3)
                      required="true"/> (4)
            <kerberos keytab-path="http.keytab" (5)
                      principal="HTTP/localhost@INFINISPAN.ORG" (6)
                      required="true"/>
         </server-identities>
      </security-realm>
   </security-realms>
</security>
1 Defines identities for Infinispan server.
2 Specifies a keytab file that provides a Kerberos identity for the Hot Rod connector.
3 Names the Kerberos service principal for the Hot Rod connector.
4 Specifies that the keytab file must exist when Infinispan server starts.
5 Specifies a keytab file that provides a Kerberos identity for the REST connector.
6 Names the Kerberos service principal for the REST connector.

4.3. Configuring Endpoint Authentication Mechanisms

Configure Hot Rod and REST connectors with SASL or HTTP authentication mechanisms to authenticate with clients.

Infinispan servers require user authentication to access the command line interface (CLI) and console as well as the Hot Rod and REST endpoints. Infinispan servers also automatically configure authentication mechanisms based on the security realms that you define.

4.3.1. Infinispan Server Authentication

Infinispan servers automatically configure authentication mechanisms based on the security realm that you assign to endpoints.

SASL Authentication Mechanisms

The following SASL authentication mechanisms apply to Hot Rod endpoints:

Security Realm SASL Authentication Mechanism

Property Realms and LDAP Realms

SCRAM-*, DIGEST-*, CRAM-MD5

Token Realms

OAUTHBEARER

Trust Realms

EXTERNAL

Kerberos Identities

GSSAPI, GS2-KRB5

SSL/TLS Identities

PLAIN

HTTP Authentication Mechanisms

The following HTTP authentication mechanisms apply to REST endpoints:

Security Realm HTTP Authentication Mechanism

Property Realms and LDAP Realms

DIGEST

Token Realms

BEARER_TOKEN

Trust Realms

CLIENT_CERT

Kerberos Identities

SPNEGO

SSL/TLS Identities

BASIC

Default Configuration

Infinispan servers provide a security realm named "default" that uses a property realm with plain text credentials defined in $ISPN_HOME/server/ conf/users.properties, as shown in the following snippet:

<security-realm name="default">
  <properties-realm groups-attribute="Roles">
    <user-properties path="users.properties"
                     relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path"
                     plain-text="true"/>
    <group-properties path="groups.properties"
                      relative-to="infinispan.server.config.path" />
  </properties-realm>
</security-realm>

The endpoints configuration assigns the "default" security realm to the Hot Rod and REST connectors, as follows:

<endpoints socket-binding="default" security-realm="default">
  <hotrod-connector name="hotrod"/>
  <rest-connector name="rest"/>
</endpoints>

As a result of the preceding configuration, Infinispan servers require authentication with a mechanism that the property realm supports.

4.3.2. Manually Configuring Hot Rod Authentication

Explicitly configure Hot Rod connector authentication to override the default SASL authentication mechanisms that Infinispan servers use for security realms.

Procedure
  1. Add an authentication definition to the Hot Rod connector configuration.

  2. Specify which Infinispan security realm the Hot Rod connector uses for authentication.

  3. Specify the SASL authentication mechanisms for the Hot Rod endpoint to use.

  4. Configure SASL authentication properties as appropriate.

Hot Rod Authentication Configuration
Hot Rod connector with SCRAM, DIGEST, and PLAIN authentication
<endpoints xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0
           https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
           xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0"
           socket-binding="default" security-realm="default"> (1)
   <hotrod-connector name="hotrod">
      <authentication>
         <sasl mechanisms="SCRAM-SHA-512 SCRAM-SHA-384 SCRAM-SHA-256 (2)
                           SCRAM-SHA-1 DIGEST-SHA-512 DIGEST-SHA-384
                           DIGEST-SHA-256 DIGEST-SHA DIGEST-MD5 PLAIN"
               server-name="infinispan" (3)
               qop="auth"/> (4)
      </authentication>
   </hotrod-connector>
</endpoints>
1 Enables authentication against the security realm named "default".
2 Specifies SASL mechanisms to use for authentication.
3 Defines the name that Infinispan servers declare to clients. The server name should match the client configuration.
4 Enables auth QoP.
Hot Rod connector with Kerberos authentication
<endpoints xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
           xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0"
           socket-binding="default" security-realm="default">
   <hotrod-connector name="hotrod">
      <authentication>
         <sasl mechanisms="GSSAPI GS2-KRB5" (1)
               server-name="datagrid" (2)
               server-principal="hotrod/datagrid@INFINISPAN.ORG"/> (3)
      </authentication>
   </hotrod-connector>
</endpoints>
1 Enables the GSSAPI and GS2-KRB5 mechanisms for Kerberos authentication.
2 Defines the Infinispan server name, which is equivalent to the Kerberos service name.
3 Specifies the Kerberos identity for the server.
Hot Rod Endpoint Authentication Mechanisms

Infinispan supports the following SASL authentications mechanisms with the Hot Rod connector:

Authentication mechanism Description Related details

PLAIN

Uses credentials in plain-text format. You should use PLAIN authentication with encrypted connections only.

Similar to the Basic HTTP mechanism.

DIGEST-*

Uses hashing algorithms and nonce values. Hot Rod connectors support DIGEST-MD5, DIGEST-SHA, DIGEST-SHA-256, DIGEST-SHA-384, and DIGEST-SHA-512 hashing algorithms, in order of strength.

Similar to the Digest HTTP mechanism.

SCRAM-*

Uses salt values in addition to hashing algorithms and nonce values. Hot Rod connectors support SCRAM-SHA, SCRAM-SHA-256, SCRAM-SHA-384, and SCRAM-SHA-512 hashing algorithms, in order of strength.

Similar to the Digest HTTP mechanism.

GSSAPI

Uses Kerberos tickets and requires a Kerberos Domain Controller. You must add a corresponding kerberos server identity in the realm configuration. In most cases, you also specify an ldap-realm to provide user membership information.

Similar to the SPNEGO HTTP mechanism.

GS2-KRB5

Uses Kerberos tickets and requires a Kerberos Domain Controller. You must add a corresponding kerberos server identity in the realm configuration. In most cases, you also specify an ldap-realm to provide user membership information.

Similar to the SPNEGO HTTP mechanism.

EXTERNAL

Uses client certificates.

Similar to the CLIENT_CERT HTTP mechanism.

OAUTHBEARER

Uses OAuth tokens and requires a token-realm configuration.

Similar to the BEARER_TOKEN HTTP mechanism.

SASL Quality of Protection (QoP)

If SASL mechanisms support integrity and privacy protection settings, you can add them to your Hot Rod connector configuration with the qop attribute.

QoP setting Description

auth

Authentication only.

auth-int

Authentication with integrity protection.

auth-conf

Authentication with integrity and privacy protection.

SASL Policies

SASL policies let you control which authentication mechanisms Hot Rod connectors can use.

Policy Description Default value

forward-secrecy

Use only SASL mechanisms that support forward secrecy between sessions. This means that breaking into one session does not automatically provide information for breaking into future sessions.

false

pass-credentials

Use only SASL mechanisms that require client credentials.

false

no-plain-text

Do not use SASL mechanisms that are susceptible to simple plain passive attacks.

false

no-active

Do not use SASL mechanisms that are susceptible to active, non-dictionary, attacks.

false

no-dictionary

Do not use SASL mechanisms that are susceptible to passive dictionary attacks.

false

no-anonymous

Do not use SASL mechanisms that accept anonymous logins.

true

Infinispan cache authorization restricts access to caches based on roles and permissions. If you configure cache authorization, you can then set <no-anonymous value=false /> to allow anonymous login and delegate access logic to cache authorization.

Hot Rod connector with SASL policy configuration
<hotrod-connector socket-binding="hotrod" cache-container="default">
   <authentication security-realm="ApplicationRealm">
      <sasl server-name="myhotrodserver"
            mechanisms="PLAIN DIGEST-MD5 GSSAPI EXTERNAL" (1)
            qop="auth">
         <policy> (2)
            <no-active value="true" />
            <no-anonymous value="true" />
            <no-plain-text value="true" />
         </policy>
      </sasl>
   </authentication>
</hotrod-connector>
1 Specifies multiple SASL authentication mechanisms for the Hot Rod connector.
2 Defines policies for SASL mechanisms.

As a result of the preceding configuration, the Hot Rod connector uses the GSSAPI mechanism because it is the only mechanism that complies with all policies.

4.3.3. Manually Configuring REST Authentication

Explicitly configure REST connector authentication to override the default HTTP authentication mechanisms that Infinispan servers use for security realms.

Procedure
  1. Add an authentication definition to the REST connector configuration.

  2. Specify which Infinispan security realm the REST connector uses for authentication.

  3. Specify the authentication mechanisms for the REST endpoint to use.

REST Authentication Configuration
REST connector with BASIC and DIGEST authentication
<endpoints xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
           xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0"
           socket-binding="default" security-realm="default"> (1)
   <rest-connector name="rest">
      <authentication mechanisms="DIGEST BASIC"/> (2)
   </rest-connector>
</endpoints>
1 Enables authentication against the security realm named "default".
2 Specifies SASL mechanisms to use for authentication
REST connector with Kerberos authentication
<endpoints xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:schemaLocation="urn:infinispan:server:11.0 https://infinispan.org/schemas/infinispan-server-11.0.xsd"
           xmlns="urn:infinispan:server:11.0"
           socket-binding="default" security-realm="default">
   <rest-connector name="rest">
      <authentication mechanisms="SPNEGO" (1)
                      server-principal="HTTP/localhost@INFINISPAN.ORG"/> (2)
   </rest-connector>
</endpoints>
1 Enables the SPENGO mechanism for Kerberos authentication.
2 Specifies the Kerberos identity for the server.
REST Endpoint Authentication Mechanisms

Infinispan supports the following authentications mechanisms with the REST connector:

Authentication mechanism Description Related details

BASIC

Uses credentials in plain-text format. You should use BASIC authentication with encrypted connections only.

Corresponds to the Basic HTTP authentication scheme and is similar to the PLAIN SASL mechanism.

DIGEST

Uses hashing algorithms and nonce values. REST connectors support SHA-512, SHA-256 and MD5 hashing algorithms.

Corresponds to the Digest HTTP authentication scheme and is similar to DIGEST-* SASL mechanisms.

SPNEGO

Uses Kerberos tickets and requires a Kerberos Domain Controller. You must add a corresponding kerberos server identity in the realm configuration. In most cases, you also specify an ldap-realm to provide user membership information.

Corresponds to the Negotiate HTTP authentication scheme and is similar to the GSSAPI and GS2-KRB5 SASL mechanisms.

BEARER_TOKEN

Uses OAuth tokens and requires a token-realm configuration.

Corresponds to the Bearer HTTP authentication scheme and is similar to OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism.

CLIENT_CERT

Uses client certificates.

Similar to the EXTERNAL SASL mechanism.

4.4. Disabling Infinispan Server Authentication

In local development environments or on isolated networks you can configure Infinispan servers to allow unauthenticated client requests.

Procedure
  1. Remove any security-realm attributes from the endpoints configuration.

  2. Ensure that the Hot Rod and REST connectors do not include any authentication definitions.

For example, the following configuration allows unauthenticated access to Infinispan:

<endpoints socket-binding="default">
  <hotrod-connector name="hotrod"/>
  <rest-connector name="rest"/>
</endpoints>

4.5. Configuring Infinispan Authorization

Authorization restricts the ability to perform operations with Infinispan and access data. You assign users with roles that have different permission levels.

4.5.1. Infinispan Authorization

Infinispan lets you configure authorization to secure Cache Managers and cache instances. When user applications or clients attempt to perform an operation on secured Cached Managers and caches, they must provide an identity with a role that has sufficient permissions to perform that operation.

For example, you configure authorization on a specific cache instance so that invoking Cache.get() requires an identity to be assigned a role with read permission while Cache.put() requires a role with write permission.

In this scenario, if a user application or client with the reader role attempts to write an entry, Infinispan denies the request and throws a security exception. If a user application or client with the writer role sends a write request, Infinispan validates authorization and issues a token for subsequent operations.

Identity to Role Mapping

Identities are security Principals of type java.security.Principal. Subjects, implemented with the javax.security.auth.Subject class, represent a group of security Principals. In other words, a Subject represents a user and all groups to which it belongs.

Infinispan uses role mappers so that security principals correspond to roles, which represent one or more permissions.

The following image illustrates how security principals map to roles:

Roles/Permissions mapping
Permissions

Permissions control access to Cache Managers and caches by restricting the actions that you can perform. Permissions can also apply to specific entities such as named caches.

Table 1. Cache Manager Permissions
Permission Function Description

CONFIGURATION

defineConfiguration

Defines new cache configurations.

LISTEN

addListener

Registers listeners against a Cache Manager.

LIFECYCLE

stop

Stops the Cache Manager.

ALL

-

Includes all Cache Manager permissions.

Table 2. Cache Permissions
Permission Function Description

READ

get, contains

Retrieves entries from a cache.

WRITE

put, putIfAbsent, replace, remove, evict

Writes, replaces, removes, evicts data in a cache.

EXEC

distexec, streams

Allows code execution against a cache.

LISTEN

addListener

Registers listeners against a cache.

BULK_READ

keySet, values, entrySet, query

Executes bulk retrieve operations.

BULK_WRITE

clear, putAll

Executes bulk write operations.

LIFECYCLE

start, stop

Starts and stops a cache.

ADMIN

getVersion, addInterceptor*, removeInterceptor, getInterceptorChain, getEvictionManager, getComponentRegistry, getDistributionManager, getAuthorizationManager, evict, getRpcManager, getCacheConfiguration, getCacheManager, getInvocationContextContainer, setAvailability, getDataContainer, getStats, getXAResource

Allows access to underlying components and internal structures.

ALL

-

Includes all cache permissions.

ALL_READ

-

Combines the READ and BULK_READ permissions.

ALL_WRITE

-

Combines the WRITE and BULK_WRITE permissions.

Combining permissions

You might need to combine permissions so that they are useful. For example, to allow "supervisors" to run stream operations but restrict "standard" users to puts and gets only, you can define the following mappings:

<role name="standard" permission="READ WRITE" />
<role name="supervisors" permission="READ WRITE EXEC BULK"/>
Role Mappers

Infinispan includes a PrincipalRoleMapper API that maps security Principals in a Subject to authorization roles. There are two role mappers available by default:

IdentityRoleMapper

Uses the Principal name as the role name.

  • Java class: org.infinispan.security.mappers.IdentityRoleMapper

  • Declarative configuration: <identity-role-mapper />

CommonNameRoleMapper

Uses the Common Name (CN) as the role name if the Principal name is a Distinguished Name (DN). For example the cn=managers,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com DN maps to the managers role.

  • Java class: org.infinispan.security.mappers.CommonRoleMapper

  • Declarative configuration: <common-name-role-mapper />

You can also use custom role mappers that implement the org.infinispan.security.PrincipalRoleMapper interface. To configure custom role mappers declaratively, use: <custom-role-mapper class="my.custom.RoleMapper" />

4.5.2. Declaratively Configuring Authorization

Configure authorization in your infinispan.xml file.

Procedure
  1. Configure the global authorization settings in the cache-container that specify a role mapper, and define a set of roles and permissions.

  2. Configure authorization for caches to restrict access based on user roles.

    <infinispan>
       <cache-container default-cache="secured" name="secured">
          <security>
             <authorization> (1)
                <identity-role-mapper /> (2)
                <role name="admin" permissions="ALL" /> (3)
                <role name="reader" permissions="READ" />
                <role name="writer" permissions="WRITE" />
                <role name="supervisor" permissions="READ WRITE EXEC"/>
             </authorization>
          </security>
          <local-cache name="secured">
             <security>
                <authorization/> (4)
             </security>
          </local-cache>
       </cache-container>
    </infinispan>
    1 Enables Infinispan authorization for the Cache Manager.
    2 Specifies an implementation of PrincipalRoleMapper that maps Principals to roles.
    3 Defines roles and their associated permissions.
    4 Implicitly adds all roles from the global configuration.

    If you do not want to apply all roles to a cache, explicitly define the roles that are authorized for caches as follows:

    <infinispan>
       <cache-container default-cache="secured" name="secured">
          <security>
             <authorization>
                <identity-role-mapper />
                <role name="admin" permissions="ALL" />
                <role name="reader" permissions="READ" />
                <role name="writer" permissions="WRITE" />
                <role name="supervisor" permissions="READ WRITE EXEC"/>
             </authorization>
          </security>
          <local-cache name="secured">
             <security>
                <authorization roles="admin supervisor reader"/> (1)
             </security>
          </local-cache>
       </cache-container>
    
    </infinispan>
    1 Defines authorized roles for the cache. In this example, users who have the writer role only are not authorized for the "secured" cache. Infinispan denies any access requests from those users.

5. Setting Up Infinispan Clusters

Infinispan requires a transport layer so nodes can automatically join and leave clusters. The transport layer also enables Infinispan nodes to replicate or distribute data across the network and perform operations such as re-balancing and state transfer.

5.1. Getting Started with Default Stacks

Infinispan uses JGroups protocol stacks so nodes can send each other messages on dedicated cluster channels.

Infinispan provides preconfigured JGroups stacks for UDP and TCP protocols. You can use these default stacks as a starting point for building custom cluster transport configuration that is optimized for your network requirements.

Procedure
  1. Locate the default JGroups stacks, default-jgroups-*.xml, in the default-configs directory inside the infinispan-core-11.0.19.Final.jar file.

    The jar file is in the $ISPN_HOME/lib directory.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Use the stack attribute in your infinispan.xml file.

      <infinispan>
        <cache-container default-cache="replicatedCache">
          <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name}"
                     stack="udp" (1)
                     node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/>
        </cache-container>
      </infinispan>
      1 Uses default-jgroups-udp.xml for cluster transport.
    • Use the cluster-stack argument when you start the server:

      $ bin/server.sh --cluster-stack=udp

Infinispan logs the following message to indicate which stack it uses:

[org.infinispan.CLUSTER] ISPN000078: Starting JGroups channel cluster with stack udp

5.1.1. Default JGroups Stacks

Learn about default JGroups stacks that configure cluster transport.

File name Stack name Description

default-jgroups-udp.xml

udp

Uses UDP for transport and UDP multicast for discovery. Suitable for larger clusters (over 100 nodes) or if you are using replicated caches or invalidation mode. Minimizes the number of open sockets.

default-jgroups-tcp.xml

tcp

Uses TCP for transport and the MPING protocol for discovery, which uses UDP multicast. Suitable for smaller clusters (under 100 nodes) only if you are using distributed caches because TCP is more efficient than UDP as a point-to-point protocol.

default-jgroups-ec2.xml

ec2

Uses TCP for transport and S3_PING for discovery. Suitable for Amazon EC2 nodes where UDP multicast is not available.

default-jgroups-kubernetes.xml

kubernetes

Uses TCP for transport and DNS_PING for discovery. Suitable for Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift nodes where UDP multicast is not always available.

default-jgroups-google.xml

google

Uses TCP for transport and GOOGLE_PING2 for discovery. Suitable for Google Cloud Platform nodes where UDP multicast is not available.

default-jgroups-azure.xml

azure

Uses TCP for transport and AZURE_PING for discovery. Suitable for Microsoft Azure nodes where UDP multicast is not available.

Reference

5.1.2. TCP and UDP Ports for Cluster Traffic

Infinispan uses the following ports for cluster transport messages:

Default Port Protocol Description

7800

TCP/UDP

JGroups cluster bind port

46655

UDP

JGroups multicast

Cross-Site Replication

Infinispan uses the following ports for the JGroups RELAY2 protocol:

7900

For Infinispan clusters running on Kubernetes.

7800

If using UDP for traffic between nodes and TCP for traffic between clusters.

7801

If using TCP for traffic between nodes and TCP for traffic between clusters.

5.2. Customizing JGroups Stacks

Adjust and tune properties to create a cluster transport configuration that works for your network requirements.

Infinispan provides attributes that let you extend the default JGroups stacks for easier configuration. You can inherit properties from the default stacks while combining, removing, and replacing other properties.

Procedure
  1. Create a new JGroups stack declaration in your infinispan.xml file.

    <infinispan>
      <jgroups>
        <stack name="my-stack"> (1)
        </stack>
      </jgroups>
    </infinispan>
    1 Creates a custom JGroups stack named "my-stack".
  2. Add the extends attribute and specify a JGroups stack to inherit properties from.

    <infinispan>
      <jgroups>
        <stack name="my-stack" extends="tcp"> (1)
        </stack>
      </jgroups>
    </infinispan>
    1 Inherits from the default TCP stack.
  3. Use the stack.combine attribute to modify properties for protocols configured in the inherited stack.

  4. Use the stack.position attribute to define the location for your custom stack.

    For example, you might evaluate using a Gossip router and symmetric encryption with the default TCP stack as follows:

    <jgroups>
      <stack name="my-stack" extends="tcp">
        <TCPGOSSIP initial_hosts="${jgroups.tunnel.gossip_router_hosts:localhost[12001]}"
                 stack.combine="REPLACE"
                 stack.position="MPING" /> (1)
        <FD_SOCK stack.combine="REMOVE"/> (2)
        <VERIFY_SUSPECT timeout="2000"/> (3)
        <SYM_ENCRYPT sym_algorithm="AES"
                     keystore_name="mykeystore.p12"
                     keystore_type="PKCS12"
                     store_password="changeit"
                     key_password="changeit"
                     alias="myKey"
                     stack.combine="INSERT_AFTER"
                     stack.position="VERIFY_SUSPECT" /> (4)
      </stack>
    </jgroups>
    1 Uses the TCPGOSSIP protocol as the discovery mechanism instead of MPING.
    2 Removes the FD_SOCK protocol from the stack.
    3 Modifies the timeout value for the VERIFY_SUSPECT protocol.
    4 Adds the SYM_ENCRYPT protocol to the stack after the VERIFY_SUSPECT protocol.
  5. Specify the stack name as the value for the stack attribute in the transport configuration.

    <infinispan>
      <jgroups>
        <stack name="my-stack" extends="tcp">
         ...
        </stack>
        <cache-container name="default" statistics="true">
          <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name}"
                     stack="my-stack" (1)
                     node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/>
       </cache-container>
      </jgroups>
    </infinispan>
    1 Configures Infinispan to use "my-stack" for cluster transport.
  6. Check Infinispan logs to ensure it uses the stack.

    [org.infinispan.CLUSTER] ISPN000078: Starting JGroups channel cluster with stack my-stack

5.2.1. Inheritance Attributes

When you extend a JGroups stack, inheritance attributes let you adjust protocols and properties in the stack you are extending.

  • stack.position specifies protocols to modify.

  • stack.combine uses the following values to extend JGroups stacks:

    Value Description

    COMBINE

    Overrides protocol properties.

    REPLACE

    Replaces protocols.

    INSERT_AFTER

    Adds a protocol into the stack after another protocol. Does not affect the protocol that you specify as the insertion point.

    Protocols in JGroups stacks affect each other based on their location in the stack. For example, you should put a protocol such as NAKACK2 after the SYM_ENCRYPT or ASYM_ENCRYPT protocol so that NAKACK2 is secured.

    REMOVE

    Removes protocols from the stack.

5.3. Using JGroups System Properties

Pass system properties to Infinispan at startup to tune cluster transport.

Procedure
  • Use -D<property-name>=<property-value> arguments to set JGroups system properties as required.

For example, set a custom bind port and IP address as follows:

$ bin/server.sh -Djgroups.bind.port=1234 -Djgroups.bind.address=192.0.2.0

5.3.1. System Properties for JGroups Stacks

Set system properties that configure JGroups cluster transport stacks.

System Property Description Default Value Required/Optional

jgroups.bind.address

Bind address for cluster transport.

SITE_LOCAL

Optional

jgroups.bind.port

Bind port for the socket.

7800

Optional

jgroups.mcast_addr

IP address for multicast, both discovery and inter-cluster communication. The IP address must be a valid "class D" address that is suitable for IP multicast.

228.6.7.8

Optional

jgroups.mcast_port

Port for the multicast socket.

46655

Optional

jgroups.ip_ttl

Time-to-live (TTL) for IP multicast packets. The value defines the number of network hops a packet can make before it is dropped.

2

Optional

jgroups.thread_pool.min_threads

Minimum number of threads for the thread pool.

0

Optional

jgroups.thread_pool.max_threads

Maximum number of threads for the thread pool.

200

Optional

jgroups.join_timeout

Maximum number of milliseconds to wait for join requests to succeed.

2000

Optional

jgroups.thread_dumps_threshold

Number of times a thread pool needs to be full before a thread dump is logged.

10000

Optional

Amazon EC3

The following system properties apply only to default-jgroups-ec2.xml:

System Property Description Default Value Required/Optional

jgroups.s3.access_key

Amazon S3 access key for an S3 bucket.

No default value.

Optional

jgroups.s3.secret_access_key

Amazon S3 secret key used for an S3 bucket.

No default value.

Optional

jgroups.s3.bucket

Name of the Amazon S3 bucket. The name must exist and be unique.

No default value.

Optional

Kubernetes

The following system properties apply only to default-jgroups-kubernetes.xml:

System Property Description Default Value Required/Optional

jgroups.dns.query

Sets the DNS record that returns cluster members.

No default value.

Required

Google Cloud Platform

The following system properties apply only to default-jgroups-google.xml:

System Property Description Default Value Required/Optional

jgroups.google.bucket_name

Name of the Google Compute Engine bucket. The name must exist and be unique.

No default value.

Required

5.4. Using Inline JGroups Stacks

You can insert complete JGroups stack definitions into infinispan.xml files.

Procedure
  • Embed a custom JGroups stack declaration in your infinispan.xml file.

    <infinispan>
      <jgroups> (1)
        <stack name="prod"> (2)
          <TCP bind_port="7800" port_range="30" recv_buf_size="20000000" send_buf_size="640000"/>
          <MPING bind_addr="127.0.0.1" break_on_coord_rsp="true"
                 mcast_addr="${jgroups.mping.mcast_addr:228.2.4.6}"
                 mcast_port="${jgroups.mping.mcast_port:43366}"
                 num_discovery_runs="3"
                 ip_ttl="${jgroups.udp.ip_ttl:2}"/>
          <MERGE3 />
          <FD_SOCK />
          <FD_ALL timeout="3000" interval="1000" timeout_check_interval="1000" />
          <VERIFY_SUSPECT timeout="1000" />
          <pbcast.NAKACK2 use_mcast_xmit="false" xmit_interval="100" xmit_table_num_rows="50"
                          xmit_table_msgs_per_row="1024" xmit_table_max_compaction_time="30000" />
          <UNICAST3 xmit_interval="100" xmit_table_num_rows="50" xmit_table_msgs_per_row="1024"
                    xmit_table_max_compaction_time="30000" />
          <pbcast.STABLE stability_delay="200" desired_avg_gossip="2000" max_bytes="1M" />
          <pbcast.GMS print_local_addr="false" join_timeout="${jgroups.join_timeout:2000}" />
          <UFC max_credits="4m" min_threshold="0.40" />
          <MFC max_credits="4m" min_threshold="0.40" />
          <FRAG3 />
        </stack>
      </jgroups>
      <cache-container default-cache="replicatedCache">
        <transport stack="prod" /> (3)
        ...
      </cache-container>
    </infinispan>
    1 Contains one or more JGroups stack definitions.
    2 Defines a custom JGroups stack named "prod".
    3 Configures Infinispan to use "prod" for cluster transport.

5.5. Using External JGroups Stacks

Reference external files that define custom JGroups stacks in infinispan.xml files.

Procedure
  1. Add custom JGroups stack files to the $ISPN_HOME/server/conf directory.

    Alternatively you can specify an absolute path when you declare the external stack file.

  2. Reference the external stack file with the stack-file element.

    <infinispan>
      <jgroups>
         <stack-file name="prod-tcp" path="prod-jgroups-tcp.xml"/> (1)
      </jgroups>
      <cache-container default-cache="replicatedCache">
        <transport stack="prod-tcp" /> (2)
        <replicated-cache name="replicatedCache"/>
      </cache-container>
      ...
    </infinispan>
    1 Creates a stack named "prod-tcp" that uses the "prod-jgroups-tcp.xml" definition.
    2 Configures Infinispan to use "prod-tcp" for cluster transport.

5.6. Cluster Discovery Protocols

Infinispan supports different protocols that allow nodes to automatically find each other on the network and form clusters.

There are two types of discovery mechanisms that Infinispan can use:

  • Generic discovery protocols that work on most networks and do not rely on external services.

  • Discovery protocols that rely on external services to store and retrieve topology information for Infinispan clusters.
    For instance the DNS_PING protocol performs discovery through DNS server records.

Running Infinispan on hosted platforms requires using discovery mechanisms that are adapted to network constraints that individual cloud providers impose.

5.6.1. PING

PING, or UDPPING is a generic JGroups discovery mechanism that uses dynamic multicasting with the UDP protocol.

When joining, nodes send PING requests to an IP multicast address to discover other nodes already in the Infinispan cluster. Each node responds to the PING request with a packet that contains the address of the coordinator node and its own address. C=coordinator’s address and A=own address. If no nodes respond to the PING request, the joining node becomes the coordinator node in a new cluster.

PING configuration example
<config>
  <PING num_discovery_runs="3"/>
  ...
</config>
Reference

5.6.2. TCPPING

TCPPING is a generic JGroups discovery mechanism that uses a list of static addresses for cluster members.

With TCPPING, you manually specify the IP address or hostname of each node in the Infinispan cluster as part of the JGroups stack, rather than letting nodes discover each other dynamically.

TCPPING configuration example
<config>
  <TCP bind_port="7800" />
  <TCPPING timeout="3000"
           initial_hosts="${jgroups.tcpping.initial_hosts:hostname1[port1],hostname2[port2]}"
          port_range="0" (1)
          num_initial_members="3"/>
  ...
</config>
1 For reliable discovery, Red Hat recommends port-range=0.
Reference

5.6.3. MPING

MPING uses IP multicast to discover the initial membership of Infinispan clusters.

You can use MPING to replace TCPPING discovery with TCP stacks and use multicasing for discovery instead of static lists of initial hosts. However, you can also use MPING with UDP stacks.

MPING configuration example
<config>
  <MPING mcast_addr="${jgroups.mcast_addr:228.6.7.8}"
         mcast_port="${jgroups.mcast_port:46655}"
         num_discovery_runs="3"
         ip_ttl="${jgroups.udp.ip_ttl:2}"/>
  ...
</config>
Reference

5.6.4. TCPGOSSIP

Gossip routers provide a centralized location on the network from which your Infinispan cluster can retrieve addresses of other nodes.

You inject the address (IP:PORT) of the Gossip router into Infinispan nodes as follows:

  1. Pass the address as a system property to the JVM; for example, -DGossipRouterAddress="10.10.2.4[12001]".

  2. Reference that system property in the JGroups configuration file.

Gossip router configuration example
<config>
  <TCP bind_port="7800" />
  <TCPGOSSIP timeout="3000"
             initial_hosts="${GossipRouterAddress}"
             num_initial_members="3" />
  ...
</config>

5.6.5. JDBC_PING

JDBC_PING uses shared databases to store information about Infinispan clusters. This protocol supports any database that can use a JDBC connection.

Nodes write their IP addresses to the shared database so joining nodes can find the Infinispan cluster on the network. When nodes leave Infinispan clusters, they delete their IP addresses from the shared database.

JDBC_PING configuration example
<config>
  <JDBC_PING connection_url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/database_name"
             connection_username="user"
             connection_password="password"
             connection_driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"/>
  ...
</config>

Add the appropriate JDBC driver to the classpath so Infinispan can use JDBC_PING.

5.6.6. DNS_PING

JGroups DNS_PING queries DNS servers to discover Infinispan cluster members in Kubernetes environments such as OKD and Red Hat OpenShift.

DNS_PING configuration example
<config>
  <dns.DNS_PING dns_query="myservice.myproject.svc.cluster.local" />
  ...
</config>
Reference

5.7. Encrypting Cluster Transport

Secure cluster transport so that nodes communicate with encrypted messages. You can also configure Infinispan clusters to perform certificate authentication so that only nodes with valid identities can join.

5.7.1. Infinispan Cluster Security

To secure cluster traffic, you configure Infinispan nodes to encrypt JGroups message payloads with secret keys.

Infinispan nodes can obtain secret keys from either:

  • The coordinator node (asymmetric encryption).

  • A shared keystore (symmetric encryption).

Retrieving secret keys from coordinator nodes

You configure asymmetric encryption by adding the ASYM_ENCRYPT protocol to a JGroups stack in your Infinispan configuration. This allows Infinispan clusters to generate and distribute secret keys.

When using asymmetric encryption, you should also provide keystores so that nodes can perform certificate authentication and securely exchange secret keys. This protects your cluster from man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.

Asymmetric encryption secures cluster traffic as follows:

  1. The first node in the Infinispan cluster, the coordinator node, generates a secret key.

  2. A joining node performs certificate authentication with the coordinator to mutually verify identity.

  3. The joining node requests the secret key from the coordinator node. That request includes the public key for the joining node.

  4. The coordinator node encrypts the secret key with the public key and returns it to the joining node.

  5. The joining node decrypts and installs the secret key.

  6. The node joins the cluster, encrypting and decrypting messages with the secret key.

Retrieving secret keys from shared keystores

You configure symmetric encryption by adding the SYM_ENCRYPT protocol to a JGroups stack in your Infinispan configuration. This allows Infinispan clusters to obtain secret keys from keystores that you provide.

  1. Nodes install the secret key from a keystore on the Infinispan classpath at startup.

  2. Node join clusters, encrypting and decrypting messages with the secret key.

Comparison of asymmetric and symmetric encryption

ASYM_ENCRYPT with certificate authentication provides an additional layer of encryption in comparison with SYM_ENCRYPT. You provide keystores that encrypt the requests to coordinator nodes for the secret key. Infinispan automatically generates that secret key and handles cluster traffic, while letting you specify when to generate secret keys. For example, you can configure clusters to generate new secret keys when nodes leave. This ensures that nodes cannot bypass certificate authentication and join with old keys.

SYM_ENCRYPT, on the other hand, is faster than ASYM_ENCRYPT because nodes do not need to exchange keys with the cluster coordinator. A potential drawback to SYM_ENCRYPT is that there is no configuration to automatically generate new secret keys when cluster membership changes. Users are responsible for generating and distributing the secret keys that nodes use to encrypt cluster traffic.

5.7.2. Configuring Cluster Transport with Asymmetric Encryption

Configure Infinispan clusters to generate and distribute secret keys that encrypt JGroups messages.

Procedure
  1. Create a keystore with certificate chains that enables Infinispan to verify node identity.

  2. Place the keystore on the classpath for each node in the cluster.

    For Infinispan Server, you put the keystore in the $ISPN_HOME directory.

  3. Add the SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE and ASYM_ENCRYPT protocols to a JGroups stack in your Infinispan configuration, as in the following example:

    <infinispan>
        <jgroups>
             <stack name="encrypt-tcp" extends="tcp"> (1)
               <SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE keystore_name="mykeystore.jks" (2)
                                 keystore_password="changeit" (3)
                                 stack.combine="INSERT_AFTER"
                                 stack.position="VERIFY_SUSPECT"/> (4)
               <ASYM_ENCRYPT asym_keylength="2048" (5)
                        asym_algorithm="RSA" (6)
                        change_key_on_coord_leave = "false" (7)
                        change_key_on_leave = "false" (8)
                        use_external_key_exchange = "true" (9)
                        stack.combine="INSERT_AFTER"
                        stack.position="SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE"/> (10)
             </stack>
        </jgroups>
        <cache-container name="default" statistics="true">
          <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name}"
                     stack="encrypt-tcp" (11)
                     node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/>
       </cache-container>
    </infinispan>
    1 Creates a secure JGroups stack named "encrypt-tcp" that extends the default TCP stack for Infinispan.
    2 Names the keystore that nodes use to perform certificate authentication.
    3 Specifies the keystore password.
    4 Uses the stack.combine and stack.position attributes to insert SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE into the default TCP stack after the VERIFY_SUSPECT protocol.
    5 Specifies the length of the secret key that the coordinator node generates. The default value is 2048.
    6 Specifies the cipher engine the coordinator node uses to generate secret keys. The default value is RSA.
    7 Configures Infinispan to generate and distribute a new secret key when the coordinator node changes.
    8 Configures Infinispan to generate and distribute a new secret key when nodes leave.
    9 Configures Infinispan nodes to use the SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE protocol for certificate authentication.
    10 Uses the stack.combine and stack.position attributes to insert ASYM_ENCRYPT into the default TCP stack after the SSL_KEY_EXCHANGE protocol.
    11 Configures the Infinispan cluster to use the secure JGroups stack.
Verification

When you start your Infinispan cluster, the following log message indicates that the cluster is using the secure JGroups stack:

[org.infinispan.CLUSTER] ISPN000078: Starting JGroups channel cluster with stack <encrypted_stack_name>

Infinispan nodes can join the cluster only if they use ASYM_ENCRYPT and can obtain the secret key from the coordinator node. Otherwise the following message is written to Infinispan logs:

[org.jgroups.protocols.ASYM_ENCRYPT] <hostname>: received message without encrypt header from <hostname>; dropping it
Reference

The example ASYM_ENCRYPT configuration in this procedure shows commonly used parameters. Refer to JGroups documentation for the full set of available parameters.

5.7.3. Configuring Cluster Transport with Symmetric Encryption

Configure Infinispan clusters to encrypt JGroups messages with secret keys from keystores that you provide.

Procedure
  1. Create a keystore that contains a secret key.

  2. Place the keystore on the classpath for each node in the cluster.

    For Infinispan Server, you put the keystore in the $ISPN_HOME directory.

  3. Add the SYM_ENCRYPT protocol to a JGroups stack in your Infinispan configuration, as in the following example:

    <infinispan>
        <jgroups>
             <stack name="encrypt-tcp" extends="tcp"> (1)
               <SYM_ENCRYPT keystore_name="myKeystore.p12" (2)
                            keystore_type="PKCS12" (3)
                            store_password="changeit" (4)
                            key_password="changeit" (5)
                            alias="myKey" (6)
                            stack.combine="INSERT_AFTER"
                            stack.position="VERIFY_SUSPECT"/> (7)
             </stack>
        </jgroups>
        <cache-container name="default" statistics="true">
          <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name}"
                     stack="encrypt-tcp" (8)
                     node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/>
       </cache-container>
    </infinispan>
    1 Creates a secure JGroups stack named "encrypt-tcp" that extends the default TCP stack for Infinispan.
    2 Names the keystore from which nodes obtain secret keys.
    3 Specifies the keystore type. JGroups uses JCEKS by default.
    4 Specifies the keystore password.
    5 Specifies the secret key password.
    6 Specifies the secret key alias.
    7 Uses the stack.combine and stack.position attributes to insert SYM_ENCRYPT into the default TCP stack after the VERIFY_SUSPECT protocol.
    8 Configures the Infinispan cluster to use the secure JGroups stack.
Verification

When you start your Infinispan cluster, the following log message indicates that the cluster is using the secure JGroups stack:

[org.infinispan.CLUSTER] ISPN000078: Starting JGroups channel cluster with stack <encrypted_stack_name>

Infinispan nodes can join the cluster only if they use SYM_ENCRYPT and can obtain the secret key from the shared keystore. Otherwise the following message is written to Infinispan logs:

[org.jgroups.protocols.SYM_ENCRYPT] <hostname>: received message without encrypt header from <hostname>; dropping it
Reference

The example SYM_ENCRYPT configuration in this procedure shows commonly used parameters. Refer to JGroups documentation for the full set of available parameters.

6. Remotely Creating Infinispan Caches

Add caches to Infinispan Server so you can store data.

6.1. Cache Configuration with Infinispan Server

Caches configure the data container on Infinispan Server.

You create caches at run-time by adding definitions based on org.infinispan templates or Infinispan configuration through the console, the Command Line Interface (CLI), the Hot Rod endpoint, or the REST endpoint.

When you create caches at run-time, Infinispan Server replicates your cache definitions across the cluster.

Configuration that you declare directly in infinispan.xml is not automatically synchronized across Infinispan clusters. In this case you should use configuration management tooling, such as Ansible or Chef, to ensure that configuration is propagated to all nodes in your cluster.

6.2. Default Cache Manager

{ProductName} Server provides a default Cache Manager configuration. When you start Infinispan Server, it instantiates the Cache Manager so you can remotely create caches at run-time.

Default Cache Manager
<cache-container name="default" (1)
                 statistics="true"> (2)
  <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name:cluster}" (3)
             stack="${infinispan.cluster.stack:tcp}" (4)
             node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/> (5)
</cache-container>
1 Creates a Cache Manager named "default".
2 Exports Cache Manager statistics through the metrics endpoint.
3 Adds a JGroups cluster transport that allows {ProductName} servers to automatically discover each other and form clusters.
4 Uses the default TCP stack for cluster traffic.
5 Individual name for the node, must be unique across the cluster. Uses a unified hostname by default.
Examining the Cache Manager

After you start Infinispan Server and add user credentials, you can access the default Cache Manager through the Command Line Interface (CLI) or REST endpoint as follows:

  • CLI: Use the describe command in the default container.

    [//containers/default]> describe
  • REST: Navigate to <server_hostname>:11222/rest/v2/cache-managers/default/ in any browser.

6.3. Creating Caches with the Infinispan Console

Dynamically add caches from templates or configuration files through the Infinispan console.

Prerequisites

Create a user and start at least one Infinispan server instance.

Procedure
  1. Navigate to <server_hostname>:11222/console/ in any browser.

  2. Log in to the console.

  3. Open the Data Container view.

  4. Select Create Cache and then add a cache from a template or with Infinispan configuration in XML or JSON format.

  5. Return to the Data Container view and verify your Infinispan cache.

6.4. Creating Caches with the Infinispan Command Line Interface (CLI)

Use the Infinispan CLI to add caches from templates or configuration files in XML or JSON format.

Prerequisites

Create a user and start at least one Infinispan server instance.

Procedure
  1. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  2. Add cache definitions with the create cache command.

    • Add a cache definition from an XML or JSON file with the --file option.

      [//containers/default]> create cache --file=configuration.xml mycache
    • Add a cache definition from a template with the --template option.

      [//containers/default]> create cache --template=org.infinispan.DIST_SYNC mycache

      Press the tab key after the --template= argument to list available cache templates.

  3. Verify the cache exists with the ls command.

    [//containers/default]> ls caches
    mycache
  4. Retrieve the cache configuration with the describe command.

    [//containers/default]> describe caches/mycache

6.5. Creating Caches with Hot Rod Clients

Programmatically create caches on Infinispan Server through the RemoteCacheManager API.

The following procedure demonstrates programmatic cache creation with the Hot Rod Java client. However Hot Rod clients are available in different languages such as Javascript or C++.

Prerequisites
  • Create a user and start at least one Infinispan server instance.

  • Get the Hot Rod Java client.

Procedure
  1. Configure your client with the ConfigurationBuilder class.

    import org.infinispan.client.hotrod.RemoteCacheManager;
    import org.infinispan.client.hotrod.DefaultTemplate;
    import org.infinispan.client.hotrod.configuration.ConfigurationBuilder;
    import org.infinispan.commons.configuration.XMLStringConfiguration;
    ...
    
    ConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
    builder.addServer()
             .host("127.0.0.1")
             .port(11222)
           .security().authentication()
              .enable()
              .username("username")
              .password("password")
              .realm("default")
              .saslMechanism("DIGEST-MD5");
    
    manager = new RemoteCacheManager(builder.build());
  2. Use the XMLStringConfiguration class to add cache definitions in XML format.

  3. Call the getOrCreateCache() method to add the cache if it already exists or create it if not.

    private void createCacheWithXMLConfiguration() {
        String cacheName = "CacheWithXMLConfiguration";
        String xml = String.format("<infinispan>" +
                                      "<cache-container>" +
                                      "<distributed-cache name=\"%s\" mode=\"SYNC\"
                                      statistics=\"true\">" +
                                        "<locking isolation=\"READ_COMMITTED\"/>" +
                                        "<transaction mode=\"NON_XA\"/>" +
                                        "<expiration lifespan=\"60000\" interval=\"20000\"/>" +
                                      "</distributed-cache>" +
                                      "</cache-container>" +
                                    "</infinispan>"
                                    , cacheName);
        manager.administration().getOrCreateCache(cacheName, new XMLStringConfiguration(xml));
        System.out.println("Cache created or already exists.");
    }
  4. Create caches with org.infinispan templates as in the following example with the createCache() invocation:

    private void createCacheWithTemplate() {
        manager.administration().createCache("myCache", "org.infinispan.DIST_SYNC");
        System.out.println("Cache created.");
    }
Next Steps

Try some working code examples that show you how to create remote caches with the Hot Rod Java client. Visit the Infinispan Tutorials.

6.6. Creating Infinispan Caches with HTTP Clients

Add cache definitions to Infinispan servers through the REST endpoint with any suitable HTTP client.

Prerequisites

Create a user and start at least one Infinispan server instance.

Procedure
  • Create caches with POST requests to /rest/v2/caches/$cacheName.

Use XML or JSON configuration by including it in the request payload.

POST /rest/v2/caches/mycache

Use the ?template= parameter to create caches from org.infinispan templates.

POST /rest/v2/caches/mycache?template=org.infinispan.DIST_SYNC

6.7. Infinispan Configuration

Infinispan configuration in XML and JSON format.

6.7.1. XML Configuration

Infinispan configuration in XML format must conform to the schema and include:

  • <infinispan> root element.

  • <cache-container> definition.

Example XML Configuration
<infinispan>
    <cache-container>
        <distributed-cache name="myCache" mode="SYNC">
          <encoding media-type="application/x-protostream"/>
          <memory max-count="1000000" when-full="REMOVE"/>
        </distributed-cache>
    </cache-container>
</infinispan>

6.7.2. JSON Configuration

Infinispan configuration in JSON format:

  • Requires the cache definition only.

  • Must follow the structure of an XML configuration.

    • XML elements become JSON objects.

    • XML attributes become JSON fields.

Example JSON Configuration
{
  "distributed-cache": {
    "name": "myCache",
    "mode": "SYNC",
    "encoding": {
      "media-type": "application/x-protostream"
      },
    "memory": {
      "max-count": 1000000,
      "when-full": "REMOVE"
    }
  }
}

7. Configuring Infinispan Server Datasources

Create managed datasources to optimize connection pooling and performance for database connections.

You can specify database connection properties as part of a JDBC cache store configuration. However you must do this for each cache definition, which duplicates configuration and wastes resources by creating multiple distinct connection pools.

By using shared, managed datasources, you centralize connection configuration and pooling for more efficient usage.

7.1. Datasource Configuration for JDBC Cache Stores

Infinispan server configuration for datasources is composed of two sections:

  • A connection factory that defines how to connect to the database.

  • A connection pool that defines how to pool and reuse connections.

<data-sources>
   <data-source name="ds" jndi-name="jdbc/datasource" statistics="true"> (1)
      <connection-factory driver="org.database.Driver" (2)
                          username="db_user" (3)
                          password="secret" (4)
                          url="jdbc:db://database-host:10000/dbname" (5)
                          new-connection-sql="SELECT 1" (6)
                          transaction-isolation="READ_COMMITTED"> (7)
         <connection-property name="name">value</connection-property> (8)
      </connection-factory>
      <connection-pool
         initial-size="1" (9)
         max-size="10" (10)
         min-size="3" (11)
         background-validation="1000" (12)
         idle-removal="1" (13)
         blocking-timeout="1000" (14)
         leak-detection="10000"/> (15)
   </data-source>
</data-sources>
1 Defines a datasource name, JNDI name, and whether to enable statistics collection.
2 Specifies the JDBC driver that creates connections. Place driver JARs in the server/lib directory.
3 Specifies a username for the connection.
4 Specifies a corresponding password for the connection.
5 Specifies the JDBC URL specific to the driver in use.
6 Adds a query that verifies new connections.
7 Configures one of the transaction isolation levels for the connection: NONE, READ_UNCOMMITTED, READ_COMMITTED, REPEATABLE_READ, SERIALIZABLE.
8 Sets optional JDBC driver-specific connection properties.
9 Defines the initial number of connections the pool contains.
10 Sets the maximum number of connections in the pool.
11 Sets the minimum number of connections the pool should contain.
12 Specifies the time, in milliseconds, between background validation runs.
13 Specifies the time, in minutes, a connections can remain idle before it is removed.
14 Specifies the amount of time, in milliseconds, to block while waiting for a connection, after which an exception is thrown.
15 Specifies the time, in milliseconds, a connection can be held before a leak warning occurs.

7.2. Using Datasources in JDBC Cache Stores

Use a shared, managed datasource in your JDBC cache store configuration instead of specifying individual connection properties for each cache definition.

Prerequisites

Create a managed datasource for JDBC cache stores in your Infinispan server configuration.

Procedure
  • Reference the JNDI name of the datasource in the JDBC cache store configuration of your cache configuration, as in the following example:

<distributed-cache-configuration name="persistent-cache" xmlns:jdbc="urn:infinispan:config:store:jdbc:11.0">
    <persistence>
        <jdbc:string-keyed-jdbc-store>
            <jdbc:data-source jndi-url="jdbc/postgres"/> (1)
            <jdbc:string-keyed-table drop-on-exit="true"
                          create-on-start="true"
                          prefix="TBL">
                <jdbc:id-column name="ID" type="VARCHAR(255)"/>
                <jdbc:data-column name="DATA" type="BYTEA"/>
                <jdbc:timestamp-column name="TS" type="BIGINT"/>
                <jdbc:segment-column name="S" type="INT"/>
            </jdbc:string-keyed-table>
        </jdbc:string-keyed-jdbc-store>
    </persistence>
</distributed-cache-configuration>
1 Specifies the JNDI name that you provided for the datasource connection in your Infinispan server configuration.

8. Remotely Executing Server-Side Tasks

Define and add tasks to Infinispan servers that you can invoke from the Infinispan command line interface, REST API, or from Hot Rod clients.

You can implement tasks as custom Java classes or define scripts in languages such as JavaScript.

8.1. Creating Server Tasks

Create custom task implementations and add them to Infinispan servers.

8.1.1. Server Tasks

Infinispan server tasks are classes that extend the org.infinispan.tasks.ServerTask interface and generally include the following method calls:

setTaskContext()

Allows access to execution context information including task parameters, cache references on which tasks are executed, and so on. In most cases, implementations store this information locally and use it when tasks are actually executed.

getName()

Returns unique names for tasks. Clients invoke tasks with these names.

getExecutionMode()

Returns the execution mode for tasks.

  • TaskExecutionMode.ONE_NODE only the node that handles the request executes the script. Although scripts can still invoke clustered operations.

  • TaskExecutionMode.ALL_NODES Infinispan uses clustered executors to run scripts across nodes. For example, server tasks that invoke stream processing need to be executed on a single node because stream processing is distributed to all nodes.

call()

Computes a result. This method is defined in the java.util.concurrent.Callable interface and is invoked with server tasks.

Server task implementations must adhere to service loader pattern requirements. For example, implementations must have a zero-argument constructors.

The following HelloTask class implementation provides an example task that has one parameter:

package example;

import org.infinispan.tasks.ServerTask;
import org.infinispan.tasks.TaskContext;

public class HelloTask implements ServerTask<String> {

   private TaskContext ctx;

   @Override
   public void setTaskContext(TaskContext ctx) {
      this.ctx = ctx;
   }

   @Override
   public String call() throws Exception {
      String name = (String) ctx.getParameters().get().get("name");
      return "Hello " + name;
   }

   @Override
   public String getName() {
      return "hello-task";
   }

}

8.1.2. Deploying Server Tasks to Infinispan Servers

Add your custom server task classes to Infinispan servers.

Prerequisites

Stop any running Infinispan servers. Infinispan does not support runtime deployment of custom classes.

Procedure
  1. Package your server task implementation in a JAR file.

  2. Add a META-INF/services/org.infinispan.tasks.ServerTask file that contains the fully qualified names of server tasks, for example:

    example.HelloTask
  3. Copy the JAR file to the $ISPN_HOME/server/lib directory of your Infinispan server.

  4. Add your classes to the deserialization whitelist in your Infinispan configuration. Alternatively set the whitelist using system properties.

8.2. Creating Server Scripts

Create custom scripts and add them to Infinispan servers.

8.2.1. Server Scripts

Infinispan server scripting is based on the javax.script API and is compatible with any JVM-based ScriptEngine implementation.

Hello World Script Example

The following is a simple example that runs on a single Infinispan server, has one parameter, and uses JavaScript:

// mode=local,language=javascript,parameters=[greetee]
"Hello " + greetee

When you run the preceding script, you pass a value for the greetee parameter and Infinispan returns "Hello ${value}".

Script Metadata

Metadata provides additional information about scripts that Infinispan servers use when running scripts.

Script metadata are property=value pairs that you add to comments in the first lines of scripts, such as the following example:

// name=test, language=javascript
// mode=local, parameters=[a,b,c]
  • Use comment styles that match the scripting language (//, ;;, #).

  • Separate property=value pairs with commas.

  • Separate values with single (') or double (") quote characters.

Table 3. Metadata Properties
Property Description

mode

Defines the exection mode and has the following values:

local only the node that handles the request executes the script. Although scripts can still invoke clustered operations.

distributed Infinispan uses clustered executors to run scripts across nodes.

language

Specifies the ScriptEngine that executes the script.

extension

Specifies filename extensions as an alternative method to set the ScriptEngine.

role

Specifies roles that users must have to execute scripts.

parameters

Specifies an array of valid parameter names for this script. Invocations which specify parameters not included in this list cause exceptions.

datatype

Optionally sets the MediaType (MIME type) for storing data as well as parameter and return values. This property is useful for remote clients that support particular data formats only.

Currently you can set only text/plain; charset=utf-8 to use the String UTF-8 format for data.

Script Bindings

Infinispan exposes internal objects as bindings for script execution.

Binding Description

cache

Specifies the cache against which the script is run.

marshaller

Specifies the marshaller to use for serializing data to the cache.

cacheManager

Specifies the cacheManager for the cache.

scriptingManager

Specifies the instance of the script manager that runs the script. You can use this binding to run other scripts from a script.

Script Parameters

Infinispan lets you pass named parameters as bindings for running scripts.

Parameters are name,value pairs, where name is a string and value is any value that the marshaller can interpret.

The following example script has two parameters, multiplicand and multiplier. The script takes the value of multiplicand and multiplies it with the value of multiplier.

// mode=local,language=javascript
multiplicand * multiplier

When you run the preceding script, Infinispan responds with the result of the expression evaluation.

8.2.2. Adding Scripts to Infinispan Servers

Use the command line interface to add scripts to Infinispan servers.

Prerequisites

Infinispan Server stores scripts in the ___script_cache cache. If you enable cache authorization, users require the ___script_manager role to access ___script_cache.

Procedure
  1. Define scripts as required.

    For example, create a file named multiplication.js that runs on a single Infinispan server, has two parameters, and uses JavaScript to multiply a given value:

    // mode=local,language=javascript
    multiplicand * multiplier
  2. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  3. Use the task command to upload scripts, as in the following example:

    [//containers/default]> task upload --file=multiplication.js multiplication
  4. Verify that your scripts are available.

    [//containers/default]> ls tasks
    multiplication

8.2.3. Programmatically Creating Scripts

Add scripts with the Hot Rod RemoteCache interface as in the following example:

RemoteCache<String, String> scriptCache = cacheManager.getCache("___script_cache");
scriptCache.put("multiplication.js",
  "// mode=local,language=javascript\n" +
  "multiplicand * multiplier\n");

8.3. Running Server-Side Tasks and Scripts

Execute tasks and custom scripts on Infinispan servers.

8.3.1. Running Tasks and Scripts

Use the command line interface to run tasks and scripts on Infinispan clusters.

Procedure
  1. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  2. Use the task command to run tasks and scripts, as in the following examples:

    • Execute a script named multipler.js and specify two parameters:

      [//containers/default]> task exec multipler.js -Pmultiplicand=10 -Pmultiplier=20
      200.0
    • Execute a task named @@cache@names to retrieve a list of all available caches:

      //containers/default]> task exec @@cache@names
      ["___protobuf_metadata","mycache","___script_cache"]

8.3.2. Programmatically Running Scripts

Call the execute() method to run scripts with the Hot Rod RemoteCache interface, as in the following example:

RemoteCache<String, Integer> cache = cacheManager.getCache();
// Create parameters for script execution.
Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<>();
params.put("multiplicand", 10);
params.put("multiplier", 20);
// Run the script with the parameters.
Object result = cache.execute("multiplication.js", params);

8.3.3. Programmatically Running Tasks

Call the execute() method to run tasks with the Hot Rod RemoteCache interface, as in the following example:

// Add configuration for a locally running server.
ConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
builder.addServer().host("127.0.0.1").port(11222);

// Connect to the server.
RemoteCacheManager cacheManager = new RemoteCacheManager(builder.build());

// Retrieve the remote cache.
RemoteCache<String, String> cache = cacheManager.getCache();

// Create task parameters.
Map<String, String> parameters = new HashMap<>();
parameters.put("name", "developer");

// Run the server task.
String greet = cache.execute("hello-task", parameters);
System.out.println(greet);

9. Monitoring Infinispan Servers

9.1. Working with Infinispan Server Logs

Infinispan uses Apache Log4j 2 to provide configurable logging mechanisms that capture details about the environment and record cache operations for troubleshooting purposes and root cause analysis.

9.1.1. Infinispan Log Files

Infinispan writes log messages to the following directory:
$ISPN_HOME/${infinispan.server.root}/log

server.log

Messages in human readable format, including boot logs that relate to the server startup.
Infinispan creates this file by default when you launch servers.

server.log.json

Messages in JSON format that let you parse and analyze Infinispan logs.
Infinispan creates this file when you enable the JSON-FILE appender.

9.1.2. Configuring Infinispan Log Properties

You configure Infinispan logs with log4j2.xml, which is described in the Log4j 2 manual.

Procedure
  1. Open $ISPN_HOME/${infinispan.server.root}/conf/log4j2.xml with any text editor.

  2. Change logging configuration as appropriate.

  3. Save and close log4j2.xml.

Log Levels

Log levels indicate the nature and severity of messages.

Log level Description

TRACE

Fine-grained debug messages, capturing the flow of individual requests through the application.

DEBUG

Messages for general debugging, not related to an individual request.

INFO

Messages about the overall progress of applications, including lifecycle events.

WARN

Events that can lead to error or degrade performance.

ERROR

Error conditions that might prevent operations or activites from being successful but do not prevent applications from running.

FATAL

Events that could cause critical service failure and application shutdown.

In addition to the levels of individual messages presented above, the configuration allows two more values: ALL to include all messages, and OFF to exclude all messages.

Infinispan Log Categories

Infinispan provides categories for INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL level messages that organize logs by functional area.

org.infinispan.CLUSTER

Messages specific to Infinispan clustering that include state transfer operations, rebalancing events, partitioning, and so on.

org.infinispan.CONFIG

Messages specific to Infinispan configuration.

org.infinispan.CONTAINER

Messages specific to the data container that include expiration and eviction operations, cache listener notifications, transactions, and so on.

org.infinispan.PERSISTENCE

Messages specific to cache loaders and stores.

org.infinispan.SECURITY

Messages specific to Infinispan security.

org.infinispan.SERVER

Messages specific to Infinispan servers.

org.infinispan.XSITE

Messages specific to cross-site replication operations.

Log Appenders

Log appenders define how Infinispan records log messages.

CONSOLE

Write log messages to the host standard out (stdout) or standard error (stderr) stream.
Uses the org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.ConsoleAppender class by default.

FILE

Write log messages to a file.
Uses the org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.RollingFileAppender class by default.

JSON-FILE

Write log messages to a file in JSON format.
Uses the org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.RollingFileAppender class by default.

Log Patterns

The CONSOLE and FILE appenders use a PatternLayout to format the log messages according to a pattern.

An example is the default pattern in the FILE appender:
%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,SSS} %-5p (%t) [%c{1}] %m%throwable%n

  • %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,SSS} adds the current time and date.

  • %-5p specifies the log level, aligned to the right.

  • %t adds the name of the current thread.

  • %c{1} adds the short name of the logging category.

  • %m adds the log message.

  • %throwable adds the exception stack trace.

  • %n adds a new line.

Patterns are fully described in the PatternLayout documentation .

Enabling and Configuring the JSON Log Handler

Infinispan provides a JSON log handler to write messages in JSON format.

Prerequisites

Ensure that Infinispan is not running. You cannot dynamically enable log handlers.

Procedure
  1. Open $ISPN_HOME/${infinispan.server.root}/conf/log4j2.xml with any text editor.

  2. Uncomment the JSON-FILE appender and comment out the FILE appender:

          <!--<AppenderRef ref="FILE"/>-->
          <AppenderRef ref="JSON-FILE"/>
  3. Optionally configure the JSON appender and layout.

  4. Save and close logging.properties.

When you start Infinispan, it writes each log message as a JSON map in the following file:
$ISPN_HOME/${infinispan.server.root}/log/server.log.json

9.1.3. Access Logs

Hot Rod and REST endpoints can record all inbound client requests as log entries with the following categories:

  • org.infinispan.HOTROD_ACCESS_LOG logging category for the Hot Rod endpoint.

  • org.infinispan.REST_ACCESS_LOG logging category for the REST endpoint.

Enabling Access Logs

Access logs for Hot Rod and REST endpoints are disabled by default. To enable either logging category, set the level to TRACE in the Infinispan logging configuration, as in the following example:

<Logger name="org.infinispan.HOTROD_ACCESS_LOG" additivity="false" level="TRACE">
   <AppenderRef ref="HR-ACCESS-FILE"/>
</Logger>
Access Log Properties

The default format for access logs is as follows:

%X{address} %X{user} [%d{dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z}] &quot;%X{method} %m
%X{protocol}&quot; %X{status} %X{requestSize} %X{responseSize} %X{duration}%n

The preceding format creates log entries such as the following:

127.0.0.1 - [DD/MM/YYYY:HH:MM:SS +0000] "PUT /rest/v2/caches/default/key HTTP/1.1" 404 5 77 10

Logging properties use the %X{name} notation and let you modify the format of access logs. The following are the default logging properties:

Property Description

address

Either the X-Forwarded-For header or the client IP address.

user

Principal name, if using authentication.

method

Method used. PUT, GET, and so on.

protocol

Protocol used. HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HOTROD/2.9, and so on.

status

An HTTP status code for the REST endpoint. OK or an exception for the Hot Rod endpoint.

requestSize

Size, in bytes, of the request.

responseSize

Size, in bytes, of the response.

duration

Number of milliseconds that the server took to handle the request.

Use the header name prefixed with h: to log headers that were included in requests; for example, %X{h:User-Agent}.

9.2. Configuring Statistics, Metrics, and JMX

Enable statistics that Infinispan exports to a MicroProfile Metrics endpoint or via JMX MBeans. You can also register JMX MBeans to perform management operations.

9.2.1. Enabling Infinispan Statistics

Infinispan lets you enable statistics for Cache Managers and caches. However, enabling statistics for a Cache Manager does not enable statistics for the caches that it controls. You must explicitly enable statistics for your caches.

Infinispan server enables statistics for Cache Managers by default.

Procedure
  • Enable statistics declaratively or programmatically.

Declaratively
<cache-container statistics="true"> (1)
  <local-cache name="mycache" statistics="true"/> (2)
</cache-container>
1 Enables statistics for the Cache Manager.
2 Enables statistics for the named cache.
Programmatically
GlobalConfiguration globalConfig = new GlobalConfigurationBuilder()
  .cacheContainer().statistics(true) (1)
  .build();

 ...

Configuration config = new ConfigurationBuilder()
  .statistics().enable() (2)
  .build();
1 Enables statistics for the Cache Manager.
2 Enables statistics for the named cache.

9.2.2. Enabling Infinispan Metrics

Configure Infinispan to export gauges and histograms.

Procedure
  • Configure metrics declaratively or programmatically.

Declaratively
<cache-container statistics="true"> (1)
  <metrics gauges="true" histograms="true" /> (2)
</cache-container>
1 Computes and collects statistics about the Cache Manager.
2 Exports collected statistics as gauge and histogram metrics.
Programmatically
GlobalConfiguration globalConfig = new GlobalConfigurationBuilder()
  .statistics().enable() (1)
  .metrics().gauges(true).histograms(true) (2)
  .build();
1 Computes and collects statistics about the Cache Manager.
2 Exports collected statistics as gauge and histogram metrics.

9.2.3. Collecting Infinispan Metrics

Collect Infinispan metrics with monitoring tools such as Prometheus.

Prerequisites
  • Enable statistics. If you do not enable statistics, Infinispan provides 0 and -1 values for metrics.

  • Optionally enable histograms. By default Infinispan generates gauges but not histograms.

Procedure
  • Get metrics in Prometheus (OpenMetrics) format:

    $ curl -v http://localhost:11222/metrics
  • Get metrics in MicroProfile JSON format:

    $ curl --header "Accept: application/json" http://localhost:11222/metrics
Next steps

Configure monitoring applications to collect Infinispan metrics. For example, add the following to prometheus.yml:

static_configs:
    - targets: ['localhost:11222']

9.2.4. Configuring Infinispan to Register JMX MBeans

Infinispan can register JMX MBeans that you can use to collect statistics and perform administrative operations. However, you must enable statistics separately to JMX otherwise Infinispan provides 0 values for all statistic attributes.

Procedure
  • Enable JMX declaratively or programmatically.

Declaratively
<cache-container>
  <jmx enabled="true" /> (1)
</cache-container>
1 Registers Infinispan JMX MBeans.
Programmatically
GlobalConfiguration globalConfig = new GlobalConfigurationBuilder()
  .jmx().enable() (1)
  .build();
1 Registers Infinispan JMX MBeans.
Infinispan MBeans

Infinispan exposes JMX MBeans that represent manageable resources.

org.infinispan:type=Cache

Attributes and operations available for cache instances.

org.infinispan:type=CacheManager

Attributes and operations available for cache managers, including Infinispan cache and cluster health statistics.

For a complete list of available JMX MBeans along with descriptions and available operations and attributes, see the Infinispan JMX Components documentation.

9.3. Retrieving Server Health Statistics

Monitor the health of your Infinispan clusters in the following ways:

  • Programmatically with embeddedCacheManager.getHealth() method calls.

  • JMX MBeans

  • Infinispan REST Server

9.3.1. Accessing the Health API via JMX

Retrieve Infinispan cluster health statistics via JMX.

Procedure
  1. Connect to Infinispan server using any JMX capable tool such as JConsole and navigate to the following object:

    org.infinispan:type=CacheManager,name="default",component=CacheContainerHealth
  2. Select available MBeans to retrieve cluster health statistics.

9.3.2. Accessing the Health API via REST

Get Infinispan cluster health via the REST API.

Procedure
  • Invoke a GET request to retrieve cluster health.

    GET /rest/v2/cache-managers/{cacheManagerName}/health

Infinispan responds with a JSON document such as the following:

{
    "cluster_health":{
        "cluster_name":"ISPN",
        "health_status":"HEALTHY",
        "number_of_nodes":2,
        "node_names":[
            "NodeA-36229",
            "NodeB-28703"
        ]
    },
    "cache_health":[
        {
            "status":"HEALTHY",
            "cache_name":"___protobuf_metadata"
        },
        {
            "status":"HEALTHY",
            "cache_name":"cache2"
        },
        {
            "status":"HEALTHY",
            "cache_name":"mycache"
        },
        {
            "status":"HEALTHY",
            "cache_name":"cache1"
        }
    ]

}

Get cache manager status as follows:

GET /rest/v2/cache-managers/{cacheManagerName}/health/status
Reference

See the REST v2 (version 2) API documentation for more information.

10. Performing Rolling Upgrades for Infinispan Servers

Perform rolling upgrades of your Infinispan clusters to change between versions without downtime or data loss. Rolling upgrades migrate both your Infinispan servers and your data to the target version over Hot Rod.

10.1. Setting Up Target Clusters

Create a cluster that runs the target Infinispan version and uses a remote cache store to load data from the source cluster.

Prerequisites
  • Install a Infinispan cluster with the target upgrade version.

Ensure the network properties for the target cluster do not overlap with those for the source cluster. You should specify unique names for the target and source clusters in the JGroups transport configuration. Depending on your environment you can also use different network interfaces and specify port offsets to keep the target and source clusters separate.

Procedure
  1. Add a RemoteCacheStore on the target cluster for each cache you want to migrate from the source cluster.

    Remote cache stores use the Hot Rod protocol to retrieve data from remote Infinispan clusters. When you add the remote cache store to the target cluster, it can lazily load data from the source cluster to handle client requests.

  2. Switch clients over to the target cluster so it starts handling all requests.

    1. Update client configuration with the location of the target cluster.

    2. Restart clients.

10.1.1. Remote Cache Stores for Rolling Upgrades

You must use specific remote cache store configuration to perform rolling upgrades, as follows:

<persistence passivation="false"> (1)
   <remote-store xmlns="urn:infinispan:config:store:remote:11.0"
                 cache="myDistCache" (2)
                 protocol-version="2.5" (3)
                 hotrod-wrapping="true" (4)
                 raw-values="true" (5)
                 segmented="false"> (6)
      <remote-server host="127.0.0.1" port="11222"/> (7)
   </remote-store>
</persistence>
1 Disables passivation. Remote cache stores for rolling upgrades must disable passivation.
2 Matches the name of a cache in the source cluster. Target clusters load data from this cache using the remote cache store.
3 Matches the Hot Rod protocol version of the source cluster. 2.5 is the minimum version and is suitable for any upgrade paths. You do not need to set another Hot Rod version.
4 Ensures that entries are wrapped in a suitable format for the Hot Rod protocol.
5 Stores data in the remote cache store in raw format. This ensures that clients can use data directly from the remote cache store.
6 Disables segmentation for the remote cache store. You should enable segmentation for remote cache stores only if the number of segments in the target cluster matches the number of segements for the cache in the source cluster.
7 Points to the location of the source cluster.

10.2. Synchronizing Data to Target Clusters

When your target cluster is running and handling client requests using a remote cache store to load data on demand, you can synchronize data from the source cluster to the target cluster.

This operation reads data from the source cluster and writes it to the target cluster. Data migrates to all nodes in the target cluster in parallel, with each node receiving a subset of the data. You must perform the synchronization for each cache in your Infinispan configuration.

Procedure
  1. Start the synchronization operation for each cache in your Infinispan configuration that you want to migrate to the target cluster.

    Use the Infinispan REST API and invoke POST requests with the ?action=sync- data parameter. For example, to synchronize data in a cache named "myCache" from a source cluster to a target cluster, do the following:

    POST /v2/caches/myCache?action=sync-data

    When the operation completes, Infinispan responds with the total number of entries copied to the target cluster.

    Alternatively, you can use JMX by invoking synchronizeData(migratorName=hotrod) on the RollingUpgradeManager MBean.

  2. Disconnect each node in the target cluster from the source cluster.

    For example, to disconnect the "myCache" cache from the source cluster, invoke the following POST request:

    POST /v2/caches/myCache?action=disconnect-source

    To use JMX, invoke disconnectSource(migratorName=hotrod) on the RollingUpgradeManager MBean.

Next steps

After you synchronize all data from the source cluster, the rolling upgrade process is complete. You can now decommission the source cluster.

11. Patching Infinispan Server Installations

Install and manage patches for Infinispan server installations.

You can apply patches to multiple Infinispan servers with different versions to upgrade to a desired target version. However, patches do not take effect if Infinispan servers are running. For this reason you install patches while servers are offline. If you want to upgrade Infinispan clusters without downtime, create a new cluster with the target version and perform a rolling upgrade to that version instead of patching.

11.1. Infinispan Server Patches

Infinispan server patches are .zip archives that contain artifacts that you can apply to your $ISPN_HOME directory to fix issues and add new features.

Patches also provide a set of rules for Infinispan to modify your server installation. When you apply patches, Infinispan overwrites some files and removes others, depending on if they are required for the target version.

However, Infinispan does not make any changes to configuration files that you have created or modified when applying a patch. Server patches do not modify or replace any custom configuration or data.

11.2. Creating Server Patches

You can create patches for Infinispan servers from an existing server installation.

You can create patches for Infinispan servers starting from 10.1.7. You can patch any 10.1 or later server installation. However you cannot patch 9.4.x or earlier servers with 10.1.7 or later.

You can also create patches that either upgrade or downgrade the Infinispan server version. For example, you can create a patch from version 10.1.7 and use it to upgrade version 10.1.5 or downgrade version 11.0.0.

Procedure
  1. Navigate to $ISPN_HOME for a Infinispan server installation that has the target version for the patch you want to create.

  2. Start the CLI.

    $ bin/cli.sh
    [disconnected]>
  3. Use the patch create command to generate a patch archive and include the -q option with a meaningful qualifier to describe the patch.

    [disconnected]> patch create -q "this is my test patch" path/to/mypatch.zip \
    path/to/target/server/home path/to/source/server/home

    The preceding command generates a .zip archive in the specified directory. Paths are relative to $ISPN_HOME for the target server.

    Create single patches for multiple different Infinispan versions, for example:

    [disconnected]> patch create -q "this is my test patch" path/to/mypatch.zip \
    path/to/target/server/home \
    path/to/source/server1/home path/to/source/server2/home

    Where server1 and server2 are different Infinispan versions where you can install "mypatch.zip".

  4. Describe the generated patch archive.

    [disconnected]> patch describe path/to/mypatch.zip
    
    Infinispan patch target=$target_version(my test patch)  source=$source_version created=$timestamp
    • $target_version is the Infinispan server version from which the patch was created.

    • $source_version is one or more Infinispan server versions to which you can apply the patch.

      You can apply patches to Infinispan servers that match the $source_version only. Attempting to apply patches to other versions results in the following exception:

      java.lang.IllegalStateException: The supplied patch cannot be applied to `$source_version`

11.3. Installing Server Patches

Apply patches to Infinispan servers to upgrade or downgrade an existing version.

Prerequisites
  • Create a server patch for the target version.

Procedure
  1. Navigate to $ISPN_HOME for the Infinispan server you want to patch.

  2. Stop the server if it is running.

    If you patch a server while it is running, the version changes take effect after restart. If you do not want to stop the server, create a new cluster with the target version and perform a rolling upgrade to that version instead of patching.

  3. Start the CLI.

    $ bin/cli.sh
    [disconnected]>
  4. Install the patch.

    [disconnected]> patch install path/to/patch.zip
    
    Infinispan patch target=$target_version source=$source_version \
    created=$timestamp installed=$timestamp
    • $target_version displays the Infinispan version that the patch installed.

    • $source_version displays the Infinispan version before you installed the patch.

  5. Start the server to verify the patch is installed.

    $ bin/server.sh
    ...
    ISPN080001: Infinispan Server $version

    If the patch is installed successfully $version matches $target_version.

Use the --server option to install patches in a different $ISPN_HOME directory, for example:

[disconnected]> patch install path/to/patch.zip --server=path/to/server/home

11.4. Rolling Back Server Patches

Remove patches from Infinispan servers by rolling them back and restoring the previous Infinispan version.

If a server has multiple patches installed, you can roll back the last installed patch only.

Rolling back patches does not revert configuration changes you make to Infinispan server. Before you roll back patches, you should ensure that your configuration is compatible with the version to which you are rolling back.

Procedure
  1. Navigate to $ISPN_HOME for the Infinispan server installation you want to roll back.

  2. Stop the server if it is running.

  3. Start the CLI.

    $ bin/cli.sh
    [disconnected]>
  4. List the installed patches.

    [disconnected]> patch ls
    
    Infinispan patch target=$target_version source=$source_version
    created=$timestamp installed=$timestamp
    • $target_version is the Infinispan server version after the patch was applied.

    • $source_version is the version for Infinispan server before the patch was applied. Rolling back the patch restores the server to this version.

  5. Roll back the last installed patch.

    [disconnected]> patch rollback
  6. Quit the CLI.

    [disconnected]> quit
  7. Start the server to verify the patch is rolled back to the previous version.

    $ bin/server.sh
    ...
    ISPN080001: Infinispan Server $version

    If the patch is rolled back successfully $version matches $source_version.

Use the --server option to rollback patches in a different $ISPN_HOME directory, for example:

[disconnected]> patch rollback --server=path/to/server/home

12. Troubleshooting Infinispan Servers

Gather diagnostic information about Infinispan server deployments and perform troubleshooting steps to resolve issues.

12.1. Getting Diagnostic Reports for Infinispan Servers

Infinispan servers provide aggregated reports in tar.gz archives that contain diagnostic information about both the Infinispan server and the host. The report provides details about CPU, memory, open files, network sockets and routing, threads, in addition to configuration and log files.

Procedure
  1. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  2. Use the server report command to download a tar.gz archive:

    [//containers/default]> server report
    Downloaded report 'infinispan-<hostname>-<timestamp>-report.tar.gz'
  3. Move the tar.gz file to a suitable location on your filesystem.

  4. Extract the tar.gz file with any archiving tool.

12.2. Changing Infinispan Server Logging Configuration at Runtime

Modify the logging configuration for Infinispan servers at runtime to temporarily adjust logging to troubleshoot issues and perform root cause analysis.

Modifying the logging configuration through the CLI is a runtime-only operation, which means that changes:

  • Are not saved to the log4j2.xml file. Restarting server nodes or the entire cluster resets the logging configuration to the default properties in the log4j2.xml file.

  • Apply only to the nodes in the cluster when you invoke the CLI. Nodes that join the cluster after you change the logging configuration use the default properties.

Procedure
  1. Create a CLI connection to Infinispan.

  2. Use the logging to make the required adjustments.

    • List all appenders defined on the server:

[//containers/default]> logging list-appenders

The preceding command returns:

{
  "STDOUT" : {
    "name" : "STDOUT"
  },
  "JSON-FILE" : {
    "name" : "JSON-FILE"
  },
  "HR-ACCESS-FILE" : {
    "name" : "HR-ACCESS-FILE"
  },
  "FILE" : {
    "name" : "FILE"
  },
  "REST-ACCESS-FILE" : {
    "name" : "REST-ACCESS-FILE"
  }
}
  • List all logger configurations defined on the server:

[//containers/default]> logging list-loggers

The preceding command returns:

[ {
  "name" : "",
  "level" : "INFO",
  "appenders" : [ "STDOUT", "FILE" ]
}, {
  "name" : "org.infinispan.HOTROD_ACCESS_LOG",
  "level" : "INFO",
  "appenders" : [ "HR-ACCESS-FILE" ]
}, {
  "name" : "com.arjuna",
  "level" : "WARN",
  "appenders" : [ ]
}, {
  "name" : "org.infinispan.REST_ACCESS_LOG",
  "level" : "INFO",
  "appenders" : [ "REST-ACCESS-FILE" ]
} ]
  • Add and modify logger configurations with the set subcommand

For example, the following command sets the logging level for the org.infinispan package to DEBUG:

[//containers/default]> logging set --level=DEBUG org.infinispan
  • Remove existing logger configurations with the remove subcommand.

For example, the following command removes the org.infinispan logger configuration, which means the root configuration is used instead:

[//containers/default]> logging remove org.infinispan

12.3. Resource Statistics

You can inspect server-collected statistics for some of the resources within a Infinispan server using the stats command.

Use the stats command either from the context of a resource which collects statistics (containers, caches) or with a path to such a resource:

[//containers/default]> stats
{
  "statistics_enabled" : true,
  "number_of_entries" : 0,
  "hit_ratio" : 0.0,
  "read_write_ratio" : 0.0,
  "time_since_start" : 0,
  "time_since_reset" : 49,
  "current_number_of_entries" : 0,
  "current_number_of_entries_in_memory" : 0,
  "total_number_of_entries" : 0,
  "off_heap_memory_used" : 0,
  "data_memory_used" : 0,
  "stores" : 0,
  "retrievals" : 0,
  "hits" : 0,
  "misses" : 0,
  "remove_hits" : 0,
  "remove_misses" : 0,
  "evictions" : 0,
  "average_read_time" : 0,
  "average_read_time_nanos" : 0,
  "average_write_time" : 0,
  "average_write_time_nanos" : 0,
  "average_remove_time" : 0,
  "average_remove_time_nanos" : 0,
  "required_minimum_number_of_nodes" : -1
}
[//containers/default]> stats /containers/default/caches/mycache
{
  "time_since_start" : -1,
  "time_since_reset" : -1,
  "current_number_of_entries" : -1,
  "current_number_of_entries_in_memory" : -1,
  "total_number_of_entries" : -1,
  "off_heap_memory_used" : -1,
  "data_memory_used" : -1,
  "stores" : -1,
  "retrievals" : -1,
  "hits" : -1,
  "misses" : -1,
  "remove_hits" : -1,
  "remove_misses" : -1,
  "evictions" : -1,
  "average_read_time" : -1,
  "average_read_time_nanos" : -1,
  "average_write_time" : -1,
  "average_write_time_nanos" : -1,
  "average_remove_time" : -1,
  "average_remove_time_nanos" : -1,
  "required_minimum_number_of_nodes" : -1
}