---
title: "Kerberos authentication with the hdfs() destination"
url: "https://axoflow.com/docs/axosyslog-core/4.28/chapter-destinations/configuring-destinations-hdfs/destination-hdfs-kerberos-authentication/"
last_modified: "2023-06-27T21:05:00+02:00"
---

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://axoflow.com/docs/axosyslog-core/4.28/llms.txt).

# Kerberos authentication with the hdfs() destination

Version 3.10 and later supports Kerberos authentication to authenticate the connection to your Hadoop cluster. AxoSyslog assumes that you already have a Hadoop and Kerberos infrastructure.

> **Note:**
>
> If you configure Kerberos authentication for a `hdfs()` destination, it affects all `hdfs()` destinations. Kerberos and non-Kerberos `hdfs()` destinations cannot be mixed in a AxoSyslog configuration. This means that if one `hdfs()` destination uses Kerberos authentication, you have to configure all other `hdfs()` destinations to use Kerberos authentication too.
>
> Failing to do so results in non-Kerberos `hdfs()` destinations being unable to authenticate to the HDFS server.

> **Note:**
> If you want to configure your `hdfs()` destination to stop using Kerberos authentication, namely, to remove Kerberos-related options from the `hdfs()` destination configuration, make sure to restart AxoSyslog for the changes to take effect.

## Prerequisites:

- You have configured your Hadoop infrastructure to use Kerberos authentication.
- You have a keytab file and a principal for the host running AxoSyslog. For details, see the [Kerberos documentation](http://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/krb5-1.5/krb5-1.5.4/doc/krb5-install/The-Keytab-File.html).
- You have installed and configured the Kerberos client packages on the host running AxoSyslog. (That is, Kerberos authentication works for the host, for example, from the command line using the `kinit user@REALM -k -t <keytab_file>` command.)

```shell
   destination d_hdfs {
        hdfs(client-lib-dir("/hdfs-libs/lib")
        hdfs-uri("hdfs://hdp-kerberos.syslog-ng.example:8020")
        kerberos-keytab-file("/opt/syslog-ng/etc/hdfs.headless.keytab")
        kerberos-principal("hdfs-hdpkerberos@MYREALM")
        hdfs-file("/var/hdfs/test.log"));
    };
```

Last modified June 27, 2023: [Moves content/docs to content/ to shorten output url (a5fcf1ed)](https://github.com/axoflow/axosyslog-core-docs/commit/a5fcf1ed4956f586bc12af2b775e10aa75c1e630)