Rotate passwords

Rotate user passwords.

Redis Enterprise Software lets you implement password rotation policies using the REST API.

You can add a new password for a database user without immediately invalidating the old one (which might cause authentication errors in production).

Password rotation policies

For user access to the Redis Enterprise Software admin console, you can set a password expiration policy to prompt the user to change their password.

However, for database connections that rely on password authentication, you need to allow for authentication with the existing password while you roll out the new password to your systems.

With the Redis Enterprise Software REST API, you can add additional passwords to a user account for authentication to the database or the admin console and API.

After the old password is replaced in the database connections, you can delete the old password to finish the password rotation process.

The new password cannot already exist as a password for the user and must meet the password complexity requirements, if enabled.

Rotate password

To rotate the password of a user account:

1. Add an additional password to a user account with POST /v1/users/password:

   POST https://[host][:port]/v1/users/password
        '{"username":"<username>", "old_password":"<an_existing_password>", "new_password":"<a_new_password>"}'
   

   After you send this request, you can authenticate with both the old and the new password.

2. Update the password in all database connections that connect with the user account.

3. Delete the original password with DELETE /v1/users/password:

   DELETE https://[host][:port]/v1/users/password
          '{"username":"<username>", "old_password":"<an_existing_password>"}'
   

   If there is only one valid password for a user account, you cannot delete that password.

Replace all passwords

You can also replace all existing passwords for a user account with a single password that does not match any existing passwords. This can be helpful if you suspect that your passwords are compromised and you want to quickly resecure the account.

To replace all existing passwords for a user account with a single new password, use PUT /v1/users/password:

PUT https://[host][:port]/v1/users/password
    '{"username":"<username>", "old_password":"<an_existing_password>", "new_password":"<a_new_password>"}'

All of the existing passwords are deleted and only the new password is valid.