Securely connect Kafka clients running outside AWS to Amazon MSK with IAM Roles Anywhere
Big Data Blog
This article explains how to securely connect Kafka clients outside AWS to Amazon MSK using IAM Roles Anywhere with X.509 certificates instead of long-lived credentials.
- IAM Roles Anywhere enables temporary security credentials for workloads outside AWS
- Eliminates need for long-term access keys in client code or configuration
- Uses X.509 certificates for secure authentication to MSK clusters
- Compatible with both Amazon MSK Provisioned and Serverless clusters
- Step-by-step setup: create CA, configure trust anchor, create IAM role, setup profile
- Clients authenticate via certificate exchange to obtain temporary session tokens
- Supports on-premises and multi-cloud Kafka client deployments
This solution enhances security for external Kafka clients by replacing long-lived credentials with temporary tokens obtained through certificate-based authentication.
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