FIPS-Compatible Altinity Stable Builds

Altinity Stable Builds with FIPS 140-2 support

Altinity offers FIPS-compatible Altinity Stable Builds beginning with ClickHouse version 22.8. These builds offer the same maintenance guarantees as regular Altinity Stable Builds and are covered by Altinity enterprise support.

What are Altinity FIPS-compatible builds?

FIPS 140-2 is a United States standard for cryptography used in high-security government environments. FIPS 140-2 specifies a number of properties for encryption including handling of keys, permitted versions of TLS, allowed cipher suites, and protections against tampering of builds.

ClickHouse uses BoringSSL libraries for encryption of most application and inter-server traffic. Altinity FIPS-compatible builds use the same BoringSSL source code version that has passed FIPS 140-2 certification. Combined with documented procedures this enables ClickHouse to function in a manner that is compatible with the FIPS standard.

FIPS-compatible Altinity Stable Builds are built, tested, and released in the same way as regular Altinity Stable Builds for ClickHouse. FIPS-compatible builds have altinityfips embedded in the release name. They use separate channels for distribution on builds.altinity.cloud and have separate release notes. FIPS-compatible builds are also available as Docker images.

Other than support for FIPS 140-2, FIPS-compatible builds are essentially identical to Altinity Stable Builds. Any differences are highlighted in the release notes.

FIPS-Compatible Network Interfaces

The following network connections of ClickHouse can operate in FIPS-compatible mode in Altinity FIPS builds.

Name Type Description Default Server Port
HTTPS Port Server Accepts HTTPS API connections from clients 8443
Secure Native TCP Port Server Accepts native TCP protocol connections from clients (e.g., clickhouse-client) 9440
Interserver HTTPS Port Server & Client Used for communication between ClickHouse replicas 9010
ZooKeeper Client Connection Client Connection from ClickHouse to ZooKeeper or ClickHouse Keeper
Keeper Server Port Server Accepts ZooKeeper protocol connections from clients 9181
Raft Server Port Server & Client Used for synchronization between ClickHouse Keeper servers 9234

Prerequisites for FIPS-Compatible Operation

The minimal requirements for FIPS-compatible operation are:

  • Install FIPS-compatible Altinity Stable Build.
  • Apply FIPS-compatible configuration settings to set allowed ports, TLS version, and ciphers.

Installation

Yum and Apt Packages

FIPS-compatible Altinity Stable releases are distributed from a separate repo from standard Altinity Stable Builds. Follow the directions to set the repo for FIPS-compatible builds at (builds.altinity.cloud)[https://builds.altinity.cloud/].

Important note! FIPS builds use a different repo from standard Altinity Stable Builds. Be sure to scroll down the builds.altinity.cloud page to see the FIPS build locations.

Once the repo is set correctly, you can download and install packages using the same commands as for regular Altinity Stable Builds.

Docker

FIPS-compatible Altinity Stable containers have fips in the container tag. For example:

docker pull altinity/clickhouse-server:22.8.15.25.altinityfips

Configuration of Altinity Stable Builds for FIPS-Compatible Operation

To operate in a FIPS-compatible mode, users must update the ClickHouse configuration from the usual defaults. The specific changes include the following.

ClickHouse Server Configuration

Required server configuration changes including the following. These settings are by convention stored in /etc/clickhouse-server/config.xml and /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/.

Disable all ports not in the FIPS-Compatible Network Protocol list, including the following. Comment them out and ensure they are not present in preprocessed_config.xml.

  • ClickHouse HTTP port
  • ClickHouse TCP port
  • Additional non-FIPS client protocols: MySQL, PostgreSQL, gRPC, etc.
  • Enable HTTPS and TCP secure protocols
  • Configure openSSL sections to restrict TLS to TLSv1.2 and FIPS 140.2-approved ciphers

Place configuration changes in file /etc/clickhouse-server/config.d/fips.xml. This will prevent your settings from being overridden when installing new Altinity Stable Builds. Here is an example of file contents.

<clickhouse>
  <https_port>8443</https_port>
  <tcp_port_secure>9440</tcp_port_secure>
  <openSSL>
    <server>
      <certificateFile>${CERT_PATH}/server.crt</certificateFile>
      <privateKeyFile>${CERT_PATH}/server.key</privateKeyFile>
      <dhParamsFile>${CERT_PATH}/dh_params.pem</dhParamsFile>
      <cipherList>ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384</cipherList>
      <loadDefaultCAFile>true</loadDefaultCAFile>
      <cacheSessions>true</cacheSessions>
      <preferServerCiphers>true</preferServerCiphers>
      <requireTLSv1_2>true</requireTLSv1_2>
      <disableProtocols>sslv2,sslv3,tlsv1,tlsv1_1,tlsv1_3</disableProtocols>
      <!-- set to `none` for dev-tests with self-signed certificates -->
      <verificationMode>relaxed</verificationMode>
    </server>
    <client>
   	 <!-- in case of private CA, otherwise set `loadDefaultCAFile` to `true` and remove `caConfig` -->
   	 <loadDefaultCAFile>false</loadDefaultCAFile>
   	 <caConfig>${CA_PATH}/CA.crt</caConfig>
   	 <cacheSessions>true</cacheSessions>
   	 <preferServerCiphers>true</preferServerCiphers>
   	 <requireTLSv1_2>true</requireTLSv1_2>
   	 <disableProtocols>sslv2,sslv3,tlsv1,tlsv1_1,tlsv1_3</disableProtocols>
   	 <!-- set to 'none' for dev-tests with self-signed certificates -->
   	 <verificationMode>relaxed</verificationMode>
   	 <invalidCertificateHandler>
   		 <!-- AcceptCertificateHandler may not be used here -->
   		 <name>RejectCertificateHandler</name>
   	 </invalidCertificateHandler>
    </client>
  </openSSL>
</clickhouse>

Please note the following:

  • There is no need to set openSSL/fips value to true in xml above as it is ON by default in the FIPS build and can’t be turned off.
  • ${CERT_PATH} and ${CA_PATH} are placeholders. Replace them with appropriate values for your configuration.

ClickHouse Client Configuration

Clickhouse-client configuration settings are by convention stored in /etc/clickhouse-client/config.xml and /etc/clickhouse-client/config.d/.

To enable FIPS 140-2 operation for clickhouse-client, configure the openSSL section to restrict TLS to TLSv1.2 and FIPS 140.2-approved ciphers. Place values for the changes in /etc/clickhouse-client/config.d/fips.xml.

Verification of FIPS-Compatible Altinity Stable Operation

Verify FIPS library Startup

FIPS-compatible Altinity.Cloud servers will print the following message after a successful start-up test. This ensures that FIPS BoringSSL libraries are present and free from tampering.

$ grep 'FIPS mode' /var/log/clickhouse-server/clickhouse-server.log
2023.05.28 18:19:03.064038 [ 1 ] {} <Information> Application: Starting in FIPS mode, KAT test result: 1

Verify FIPS-Compatible Altinity Stable Version

To verify the software version, run select version() on the running server with any client program. This example confirms the version for both clickhouse-client as well as clickhouse-server.

$ clickhouse-client <options>
ClickHouse client version 22.8.15.25.altinityfips (altinity build).

5f1b329b5fdf :) select version()

SELECT version()

┌─version()───────────────┐
│ 22.8.15.25.altinityfips │
└─────────────────────────┘