Using a Cassandra Go client driver to access Amazon Keyspaces programmatically

This section shows you how to connect to Amazon Keyspaces by using a Go client driver. To provide users and applications with credentials for programmatic access to Amazon Keyspaces resources, you can do either of the following:

• Create service-specific credentials that are associated with a specific AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user.

• For enhanced security, we recommend to create IAM access keys for IAM users and roles that are used across all AWS services. The Amazon Keyspaces SigV4 authentication plugin for Cassandra client drivers enables you to authenticate calls to Amazon Keyspaces using IAM access keys instead of user name and password. For more information, see How to create and configure AWS credentials for Amazon Keyspaces.

Before you begin

You need to complete the following task before you can start.

Amazon Keyspaces requires the use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) to help secure connections with clients. To connect to Amazon Keyspaces using TLS, you need to download an Amazon digital certificate and configure the Python driver to use TLS.

Download the Starfield digital certificate using the following command and save sf-class2-root.crt locally or in your home directory.

curl https://certs.secureserver.net/repository/sf-class2-root.crt -O

Note

You can also use the Amazon digital certificate to connect to Amazon Keyspaces and can continue to do so if your client is connecting to Amazon Keyspaces successfully. The Starfield certificate provides additional backwards compatibility for clients using older certificate authorities.

curl https://certs.secureserver.net/repository/sf-class2-root.crt -O

Connect to Amazon Keyspaces using the Gocql driver for Apache Cassandra and service-specific credentials

1. Create a directory for your application.

   mkdir ./gocqlexample

2. Navigate to the new directory.

   cd gocqlexample

3. Create a file for your application.

   touch cqlapp.go

4. Download the Go driver.

   go get github.com/gocql/gocql

5. Add the following sample code to the cqlapp.go file.

   package main
   
   import (
   	    "fmt"
   	    "github.com/gocql/gocql"
   	    "log"
   )
   
   func main() {
   
       // add the Amazon Keyspaces service endpoint 
       cluster := gocql.NewCluster("cassandra.us-east-2.amazonaws.com")
       cluster.Port=9142
       // add your service specific credentials
       cluster.Authenticator = gocql.PasswordAuthenticator{
               Username: "ServiceUserName",
               Password: "ServicePassword"}
       // provide the path to the sf-class2-root.crt
       cluster.SslOpts = &gocql.SslOptions{
               CaPath: "path_to_file/sf-class2-root.crt",
               EnableHostVerification: false,            
        }
   
        // Override default Consistency to LocalQuorum
        cluster.Consistency = gocql.LocalQuorum
        cluster.DisableInitialHostLookup = false
   
        session, err := cluster.CreateSession()
        if err != nil {
               fmt.Println("err>", err)
        }
        defer session.Close()
   
        // run a sample query from the system keyspace
        var text string
        iter := session.Query("SELECT keyspace_name FROM system_schema.tables;").Iter()
        for iter.Scan(&text) {
               fmt.Println("keyspace_name:", text)
        }
        if err := iter.Close(); err != nil {
               log.Fatal(err)
        }
        session.Close()
   }

   Usage notes:

   1. Replace "path_to_file/sf-class2-root.crt" with the path to the certificate saved in the first step.

   2. Ensure that the ServiceUserName and ServicePassword match the user name and password you obtained when you generated the service-specific credentials by following the steps to Generate service-specific credentials.

   3. For a list of available endpoints, see Service endpoints for Amazon Keyspaces.

6. Build the program.

   go build cqlapp.go

7. Run the program.

   ./cqlapp

Connect to Amazon Keyspaces using the Go driver for Apache Cassandra and the SigV4 authentication plugin

The following code sample shows how to use the SigV4 authentication plugin for the open-source Go driver to access Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra).

If you haven't already done so, create credentials for your IAM user or role following the steps at How to create and configure AWS credentials for Amazon Keyspaces.

Add the Go SigV4 authentication plugin to your application from the GitHub repository. The plugin supports version 1.2.x of the open-source Go driver for Cassandra and depends on the AWS SDK for Go.

$ go mod init
$ go get github.com/aws/aws-sigv4-auth-cassandra-gocql-driver-plugin

In this code sample, the Amazon Keyspaces endpoint is represented by the Cluster class. It uses the AwsAuthenticator for the authenticator property of the cluster to obtain credentials.

package main

import (
        "fmt"
        "github.com/aws/aws-sigv4-auth-cassandra-gocql-driver-plugin/sigv4"
        "github.com/gocql/gocql"
        "log"
)

func main() {
    // configuring the cluster options
    cluster := gocql.NewCluster("cassandra.us-west-2.amazonaws.com")
    cluster.Port=9142
    var auth sigv4.AwsAuthenticator = sigv4.NewAwsAuthenticator()
    auth.Region = "us-west-2"
    auth.AccessKeyId = "AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE"
    auth.SecretAccessKey = "wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY"

    cluster.Authenticator = auth

    cluster.SslOpts = &gocql.SslOptions{
            CaPath: "path_to_file/sf-class2-root.crt",
            EnableHostVerification: false,
    }
    cluster.Consistency = gocql.LocalQuorum
    cluster.DisableInitialHostLookup = false
   
    session, err := cluster.CreateSession()
    if err != nil {
	    fmt.Println("err>", err)
	    return
    }
    defer session.Close()

    // doing the query
    var text string
    iter := session.Query("SELECT keyspace_name FROM system_schema.tables;").Iter()
    for iter.Scan(&text) {
	    fmt.Println("keyspace_name:", text)
    }
    if err := iter.Close(); err != nil {
	    log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

Usage notes:

1. Replace "path_to_file/sf-class2-root.crt" with the path to the certificate saved in the first step.

2. Ensure that the AccessKeyId and SecretAccessKey match the access key and secret access key you obtained using AwsAuthenticator. For more information, see Configuring the AWS SDK for Go in the AWS SDK for Go.

3. To store access keys outside of code, see best practices at How to manage access keys for IAM users.

4. For a list of available endpoints, see Service endpoints for Amazon Keyspaces.