ClickHouse SSO starts with choosing an external authenticator
If your security or platform team is still creating, rotating and removing ClickHouse users by hand, the first decision is which external identity source ClickHouse will trust. ClickHouse single sign-on is not a single feature. It is built from external authenticators, which can be LDAP, Kerberos, SSL X.509 certificates, an HTTP authenticator or JWT, combined with access control objects (users, roles and settings profiles) that map an authenticated identity to what that identity may do. Choosing the authenticator and designing the mapping are separate tasks, and both need an owner before any configuration is written.
The work is harder than it looks for three reasons. First, authentication and authorization are configured separately. A user who authenticates successfully through LDAP or a certificate still has no useful permissions until roles are granted to them, so a directory group that exists is not the same as a ClickHouse role that works. Second, every node must trust the identity source. In a replicated cluster, each server needs the same authenticator definition and must be able to reach the directory, Kerberos key distribution center or certificate authority, or logins will succeed on some nodes and fail on others. Third, service accounts, such as ingestion pipelines and dashboards, need a different path from people. Tying them to an interactive directory login often breaks scheduled jobs when a password rotates or an account is disabled.
ClickHouse does not ship a built-in SSO login flow for its web or native clients. Browser-based single sign-on with a redirect to a corporate identity provider is not something the server provides by itself, so the team must confirm, for each client it uses (the web interface, command-line client, language drivers, BI tools and ingestion agents), whether that client supports the chosen external method. Ask each vendor or project directly and test with a representative client before committing. A client that cannot present the required credential will force a fallback to local accounts, which is the situation you were trying to leave.
Before you select an authenticator, write down three things: the identity source that is authoritative for people, the population of service accounts and how each one authenticates, and the list of clients that must work on day one. Confirm the exact external authenticator options and their settings against the version you plan to run, using the ClickHouse external authenticators documentation and your own test environment rather than assumptions. Those answers determine which authenticator fits, and they set the scope for the role mapping and testing work in the sections that follow.
Which ClickHouse authenticators and access objects are involved
ClickHouse can hand login checks to external systems, but each authenticator proves something different and needs something specific from your directory or identity provider. Access control objects then decide what an authenticated identity is allowed to do once it is inside the server.
LDAP authentication and directories
The LDAP authenticator checks a username and password against an external directory, so ClickHouse does not store those credentials itself. The directory must be reachable from the ClickHouse nodes, and you need a service bind account with rights to query user entries. Confirm in the current external authenticators documentation which LDAP configuration keys your version supports, how TLS is configured for the connection, and which client protocols pass credentials through to this check.
Kerberos authentication
Kerberos proves that a client holds a valid ticket issued by your key distribution center, so users can sign in without typing a password into the client. This only works when the ClickHouse host has a service principal and keytab, and when clients can obtain tickets for that service name. Check the Kerberos settings and supported client protocols for your version, and confirm how clock skew and DNS name resolution are handled in your environment before you rely on it.
SSL X.509 certificate authentication
Certificate authentication proves that a client holds a private key whose certificate chains to a CA that ClickHouse trusts, and it maps the certificate to a ClickHouse user. Your PKI team must issue and rotate client certificates, and revocation handling must be agreed in advance. Confirm the exact certificate-to-user mapping options, the trusted CA configuration keys and which client interfaces accept certificates in the documentation for your version.
HTTP authenticator
The HTTP authenticator sends a credential check to an external HTTP service that answers whether the request is allowed. The service you point it at becomes part of your login path, so its availability, latency and failure behavior directly affect ClickHouse access. Your team must build or provide that endpoint, secure the channel between ClickHouse and it, and confirm the request and response format in the current documentation for your version.
JWT authentication
JWT authentication accepts a signed token from an identity provider and checks its signature and claims, which fits services and users that already receive tokens. Your identity provider must publish signing keys or a key source ClickHouse can use, and the token must carry the claims that ClickHouse needs to identify the user. Confirm which signing algorithms, key sources and claim settings your version supports, and how token expiry and key rotation are handled.
Users, roles and settings profiles
An authenticator only proves who the caller is. Users, roles, settings profiles, row policies and quotas decide what that identity can read, write and consume, and directory groups reach those permissions through the users and roles you create in ClickHouse. Plan the group-to-role mapping before go-live, and restrict the default user, which starts with all permissions. Confirm the access control workflow for your version in the access control documentation.
Choosing between LDAP, Kerberos, X.509 and JWT for ClickHouse SSO
This table compares the five external authentication options ClickHouse supports for SSO and identity integration, showing when each fits your estate and what it asks your team to run. Read each row against your directory, client types and certificate process, then shortlist one or two options before testing. The main takeaway is that the operational cost sits in the dependency each option creates, such as a directory, a key store, a certificate authority or an external service.
| Option | When it fits | What it costs operationally |
|---|---|---|
| LDAP | Estates built on Active Directory or OpenLDAP where users and groups already live in a directory | A directory must be reachable from every ClickHouse node, and someone must manage the bind account, its password rotation and its read-only scope |
| Kerberos | Windows-integrated environments and clients that authenticate with tickets rather than passwords | Service principals and keytab files must be created, distributed to hosts and rotated, and clock skew between hosts and the KDC must be controlled |
| X.509 | Machine-to-machine access and fleets where certificates are already issued and renewed by a managed process | A certificate authority process must issue, renew and revoke client certificates, and revocation handling must be verified before go-live |
| JWT | Token-issuing identity providers and service workloads that present signed tokens with claims for roles | Signing keys must be distributed to ClickHouse and rotated, and token lifetime rules must be agreed with the identity team and tested |
| HTTP authenticator | Centralized token or policy services that decide access for many systems at once | An external service must run with its own availability, monitoring and capacity, and ClickHouse logins fail if that service is unreachable |
Configuring ClickHouse SSO step by step
This sequence moves a self-hosted ClickHouse cluster from local users to identity-backed logins without locking out administrators. Each step ends with a check you can record, so the result is a cluster where people and services authenticate through your directory or certificate authority, and where access follows group membership.
Inventory identity sources and client types
Before changing server configuration, list every identity source that must work: the directory or directories that hold people, the certificate authority that issues service certificates, and any token issuer. Then list every client that connects, such as the clickhouse-client command line tool, JDBC or ODBC drivers, BI tools, applications and scheduled jobs. Note which clients can prompt for a password and which cannot. Record which user population each client belongs to. The step is complete when you have a written table with one row per identity source and one row per client type, reviewed by the team that owns each system.
Choose one authenticator per user population
For each population, select a single external authenticator. LDAP suits people who already sign in through a directory, Kerberos suits environments that issue tickets, X.509 certificates suit services with managed certificates, and JWT suits callers whose existing token issuer already vouches for them. Keep one method per population so that no user matches two methods with different rules. Confirm which methods your ClickHouse version supports and how each is named in configuration, using the external authenticators documentation as the reference for exact syntax. Check with your identity team that the chosen method meets your password, lifetime and revocation policies. The closing check is a signed-off matrix that maps each population to one authenticator and one named owner.
Register identity sources in staging
Add the directory server or certificate authority settings to a non-production cluster that holds representative schemas and data. Use the external authenticators documentation for the block structure, and confirm each setting name against the release you run, because names can change between versions. Point the cluster at a test directory or test certificate authority first. Store bind credentials in your secrets management system, outside plain configuration files. Restart or reload the server according to the procedure for your version, then confirm it starts cleanly and logs no authenticator errors. The closing check is a successful test login from one test account in each population, with the server log showing which external method authenticated the session.
Restrict the default user before enabling external logins
The default user starts with full permissions. If it remains reachable while external logins are added, a weaker path to every table stays open. Before enabling external authentication for production traffic, disable or lock the default user. Create a named administrator account through SQL that your team controls, and set its authentication method. Follow the access control documentation's recommended SQL-driven workflow, and confirm the exact statements for your version. The closing check has two parts: a connection attempt as the default user is refused, and a connection as the named administrator succeeds and can manage roles.
Map directory groups to roles
Create ClickHouse roles that match job functions, such as read-only analyst or ingestion writer, and grant each role only the database, table and privilege scope it needs. Then connect directory groups to those roles through the group mapping that your chosen authenticator supports, so that membership in a group grants the role. Review row policies, settings profiles and quotas in the same pass, because they determine what a mapped user can read and consume. The closing check is a list that shows each group, its role and the grants behind it, approved by the owner of the data. Confirm the group mapping syntax for your version before you rely on it.
Test human and service logins per client type
Run one human login and one service login through every client type from the inventory, including the command line tool, each driver, BI tools and scheduled jobs. For service accounts, confirm that the credential comes from the certificate or token flow you designed and that no shared password exists. Repeat the denied-access test with a user who belongs to no mapped group, and confirm that the login fails or that the user receives no data access. The closing check is a table that shows a successful login for each client type, a refused login for the unmapped user, and a query log entry that identifies the authenticated identity.
Roll the configuration to replicas
Apply the same authenticator and authorization configuration to every replica in the cluster. Replication copies table data between replicas, but server configuration and access control objects must be checked on each node, so verify them separately. If your version stores access control objects in replicated storage, confirm that setting in the access control documentation. Connect as the same test identity to each replica and confirm that it authenticates and receives the same roles. The closing check is a per-replica record that shows the same identity, the same roles and the same refused result for an unmapped user before you schedule the change for production.
What makes ClickHouse identity integration take longer than expected
This table lists the drivers that usually set the effort of a ClickHouse identity project, with the reason each one changes the work and how to keep it contained. The ClickHouse configuration itself is rarely the largest item; the number of sources, clients, nodes, accounts and evidence requirements usually are.
| Driver | Why it changes effort | How to keep it down |
|---|---|---|
| Identity sources and client types | Each directory (LDAP, Kerberos, X.509, JWT, HTTP authenticator) and each client type (native, HTTP, JDBC, BI tools, pipelines) adds a separate login path to test. | Confirm which sources are required on day one and defer the rest. Group clients by authentication method so each group gets one tested pattern. |
| Directory group model | Nested, duplicated or inconsistently named groups make mapping directory groups to ClickHouse roles slow and error-prone, and each exception needs review. | Inventory the groups before design starts. Agree which groups map to roles, retire unused groups, and avoid mapping by individual user. |
| ClickHouse nodes sharing one configuration | Authentication and role mapping settings must match on every node that serves the same cluster, so one mismatch can cause intermittent login failures. | Keep one versioned configuration source for all nodes. Confirm with the ClickHouse documentation how external authenticator settings are loaded on your version. |
| Service accounts: count and ownership | Each pipeline, dashboard or integration usually needs a service identity. Without a named owner, accounts accumulate and nobody can approve their access. | Define an owner for each account, a purpose, and a review date before creating it. Restrict the default user as part of the same change. |
| Certificate and keytab lifecycle | X.509 certificates for clients and servers, and Kerberos keytabs, expire and rotate. Each rotation can break connections if the process is not planned. | List every certificate and keytab with its expiry and renewal owner. Test rotation in pre-production before the first expiry date arrives. |
| Compliance evidence needs | Assessors may ask for access reviews, role assignment records and proof that only approved identities hold privileged roles. Gathering this after the build is costly. | Agree the evidence list at scoping. Design role mappings and review exports so they can be produced from ClickHouse access control and directory records. |
How directory groups map to ClickHouse roles
The core pattern is simple: an identity arrives at ClickHouse with an attribute the authenticator can read, such as a directory group, a certificate attribute or a token claim, and that attribute is matched to a ClickHouse role. The role then carries what the user may do. In ClickHouse access control, a role holds the grants, the settings profile that applies to its sessions, and any quota or row policy attached to it. Because the role is the unit that holds those permissions, the identity system decides who belongs to a role and ClickHouse decides what the role can do. Before you rely on this chain, confirm in the external authenticator documentation exactly which attribute each authenticator passes through and whether it can drive role assignment at all, since that behavior differs between LDAP, Kerberos, X.509 and JWT and changes across versions.
Make roles, not individual users, the unit of permission. When permissions live on roles, an access review becomes a question about group membership, and a leaver is removed from a group rather than hunted down across grants on dozens of accounts. Create local users only for exceptions, such as a break-glass administrator or a tool that cannot use the external authenticator. Each local user is a credential you must rotate, audit and remove, so keep that list short and documented. Check in the access control documentation how externally authenticated users interact with any locally defined users of the same name, so that a mapping does not silently grant more than you intended.
Decide the naming and role design before anything is configured. A group naming convention should encode the environment, the workload and the access level, so an administrator can read a group name and know what it grants. Design least-privilege roles per workload rather than one broad role: a dashboard role that can select from reporting tables and nothing else, an ingestion role limited to insert on specific landing tables, and an administration role reserved for schema changes and user management. Keep settings profiles and quotas aligned with those roles so that a runaway dashboard query cannot consume the resources of the ingestion path. Write the role matrix down as part of the design, because it becomes the reference for every later review.
Name an owner for membership changes before go-live. Someone must approve who joins the dashboard, ingestion and administration groups, and that approval should happen in the directory system with its own audit trail, not as a ticket that someone applies by hand in SQL. Agree who can create new groups, who can change the mapping in ClickHouse, and how often memberships are reviewed. Separate the administration group from ordinary analyst groups and require a second approver for it. Ask your implementation partner or internal team to show how a membership change flows from the directory through to a live session, and test a removal as carefully as an addition, because a removed member's existing sessions may persist until they end.
Plan verification as part of the mapping work, not after it. For each role, test one user who should be allowed and one who should be denied, using the same authenticator your production users will use. Confirm that row policies and quotas attached to the role take effect in those sessions. Record the ClickHouse version you tested against, since mapping behavior is version dependent, and repeat these checks after each upgrade in pre-production. Expect to revisit the matrix as new workloads appear, and treat any group that cannot be explained by a documented role as a finding to resolve.
Protecting bind credentials, keytabs, certificates and service accounts
Every external authenticator depends on a small set of secrets and identities that sit outside ClickHouse itself. Each one needs an owner, a storage location, a rotation path and a way to detect misuse, or the SSO design becomes the weakest link in the platform. The cards below cover the items most often left undocumented in self-hosted deployments.
LDAP bind account controls
ClickHouse uses a bind account to query the directory when it authenticates users and resolves group membership. Use a dedicated account with read-only access scoped to the search base it needs, not a personal or administrator account. Keep its password in a secrets store that the ClickHouse host reads at startup, never in shared configuration files or version control. Confirm with your directory team how the password is rotated and what happens to running servers when it changes.
Kerberos keytab handling
A keytab holds long-term key material for the ClickHouse service principal, so anyone who can read the file can impersonate that service. Restrict the file to the ClickHouse service user with owner-only permissions, and keep backups of it under the same controls. Define a rotation procedure that issues a new key version, updates the keytab and restarts or reloads the server, and test it before the first scheduled rotation. Record who in your organization can read keytabs and review that list on a fixed cadence.
X.509 client certificates and the CA
Certificate-based authentication trusts whatever the certificate authority signs, so the CA is the most sensitive item in this design. Decide who issues client certificates, how long they last, and how an expiring certificate is tracked before it breaks logins. Confirm that your process can revoke a certificate and that ClickHouse checks revocation status in the way your policy requires. Keep the CA private key offline or in a hardware-backed store, and document the chain that ClickHouse must trust.
JWT signing keys and token lifetimes
JWT authentication accepts tokens that an external identity provider signs, so the signing keys and the trusted issuer settings define who can log in. Confirm which key set ClickHouse fetches or stores, how key rollover is handled, and whether the audience and issuer claims are validated against your configuration. Set token lifetimes short enough that a revoked user loses access within a window your security policy accepts, and verify that behavior in a test before production use.
Service accounts for pipelines and BI tools
Ingestion pipelines and BI tools often connect with a shared login that outlives the people who created it. Give each workload its own identity, with a documented owner, a stated purpose and only the roles it needs for its tables. Avoid sharing one login across pipelines, dashboards and ad hoc users, because query logs then cannot show which workload ran a query. Review the register of service identities on a regular cadence and disable any account whose owner cannot be named. Access rules for these identities are covered in the ClickHouse security hardening topic.
Testing that ClickHouse SSO works and fails closed
The test plan for ClickHouse SSO should prove two things: each directory group signs in and receives only the grants its role defines, and every failure path denies access. Organize the cases in three groups. Positive cases confirm that a user from each mapped group can authenticate through the configured external authenticator and that the session holds exactly that role's privileges. Negative cases confirm that the system refuses everyone who should be refused. Operational cases confirm that the integration keeps working across the cluster and through routine restarts. Write each case with its input, expected result and the query used to check it, so a reviewer can rerun it without interpreting your notes.
For positive cases, do not stop at a successful login. Sign in as one test identity per mapped group, then run privilege queries from that session, such as checking the current user's granted roles and testing a small set of statements that the role should allow and should block. Compare the results with the role definitions in your access control configuration. Repeat the check for every group, because a mapping error often shows up as a user who logs in successfully but holds the wrong role. Include at least one user who belongs to two groups, since the outcome for overlapping memberships depends on how your mapping rules are written and should be confirmed on your version.
Negative cases need the most care. Test a user who is not in any mapped group, a user whose certificate has expired or been revoked, a token that has expired, and a Kerberos attempt made with a wrong keytab. Each should be refused with no session created. Then simulate a directory outage by stopping or blocking access to the LDAP or Kerberos service and attempt logins. A failed directory must produce denial. It must not fall back to a permissive account, to the default user, or to a cached session that outlives its validity. Confirm this behavior on the ClickHouse version you run, because the answer depends on the authenticator configuration and the release, and record the exact error returned to the client.
Operational cases cover the cluster as it runs. Log in against every replica directly, not only through a load balancer, and confirm the same identity receives the same role on each. Restart one node, wait for it to rejoin, and repeat the login test there. Check that the default user remains restricted after all these steps, since an unrestricted default account would make the other controls moot. Keep the test plan in version control and rerun it after each upgrade, configuration change or directory change.
Keep dated evidence from every run. For each case, record the date, the ClickHouse version, the test identity and its directory group, the command or query, the result and the name of the tester. Store the outputs of privilege queries alongside the configuration files they validate. These records are what an access review will ask for months later, when the people who ran the tests may have moved on. Agree with your security and compliance leads in advance where this evidence will be kept and how long it will be retained.
Keeping identity mappings, credentials and access reviews current after go-live
An identity integration drifts as directories change, certificates expire and people move teams. The cards below cover the recurring checks, credential lifecycle and records that keep ClickHouse access aligned with your directory after the first login works.
Recurring role-to-group mapping review
Compare every directory group referenced in ClickHouse role mappings against the current directory on a fixed schedule. Groups get renamed, split or deleted, and a mapping that points at a missing group either grants nothing or silently keeps access alive. Record who approved each mapping and when it was last confirmed.
Credential and certificate expiry monitoring
Track expiry dates for TLS server certificates, client X.509 certificates, and any signing or validation keys used by JWT authenticators. Set alerts well ahead of expiry, and confirm which team owns renewal for each certificate. An expired certificate on the native or HTTP port stops logins across every client at once.
Rotation schedules for bind passwords, keytabs and signing keys
Define a rotation interval and owner for the LDAP bind account password, the Kerberos keytab and any JWT signing keys. Confirm with your directory and Kerberos administrators how rotation is performed and whether ClickHouse must be reloaded afterward. Test one rotation in pre-production before relying on the schedule.
Onboarding and offboarding runbook through the directory
Write a runbook that grants and removes ClickHouse access by changing directory group membership, not by creating or dropping ClickHouse users by hand. Include the steps for service accounts and contractors. Removing a person from the directory should be the single action that ends their access, and the runbook should say how that is verified.
Authenticator configuration documentation per environment
Keep a current record of each authenticator in each environment, including the directory host, base distinguished name, Kerberos realm, certificate authorities, JWT issuer and audience values, and the ClickHouse settings files that hold them. Production and pre-production should differ only where intended, so the record shows any drift between them.
Review of query logs and failed logins
Use query logs to confirm which authenticated identity ran which queries, and review failed login attempts in the same recurring session as mapping and credential checks. Repeated failures can indicate expired credentials, a removed group or an attack. Confirm the retention period for these logs with your compliance owner before the first review.
Re-testing authentication across supported upgrades
Before moving to a new ClickHouse release, re-test every authenticator in pre-production with representative users and groups. Check the ClickHouse security policy for the versions that currently receive security updates, and plan upgrades so the cluster stays on a supported line. Re-test after changes to the directory or certificates as well.
How much ClickHouse SSO work can our team do alone?
What drives the cost of ClickHouse SSO integration work?
The number of identity sources, role mappings and service accounts drives most of the cost. Connecting one authenticator, such as LDAP, is a different job from combining LDAP, Kerberos, X.509 certificates and JWT in one cluster. Each directory group that maps to a ClickHouse role, each service account and each client tool that needs non-interactive access adds design, testing and documentation work. Whether a pre-production cluster exists also matters, because testing against production adds risk and review time. The build is a one-time cost, while group changes, new service accounts and certificate renewals recur. The effort-drivers table on this page lists these factors in more detail. Ask any provider to price each driver separately in the written scope so you can see what changes the quote.
How long does ClickHouse SSO integration usually take?
Duration depends on scope, and the largest variable is how many authentication paths you need. A single external authenticator against a directory with clean group structure takes far less time than several authenticators with layered role mapping, service accounts and separate environments. External dependencies often set the pace: directory administrators may need to create bind accounts or groups, certificate owners may need to issue or rotate certificates, and change windows may limit when production changes can happen. This page does not give a timeline because it depends on those inputs. Use the effort-drivers table to identify which inputs are unknown in your environment, then ask for the timeline to be written into the agreed scope before work starts.
What does our team need to provide for ClickHouse SSO?
Your team provides access, decisions and named owners. Directory administrators must supply bind accounts, group structures and test users for each authenticator. Certificate authority owners must confirm the certificate chain, issuance process and revocation handling for any X.509 authentication. You need a pre-production cluster with representative users and queries so that role mappings can be tested before they reach production. Each service account needs a named owner who approves its permissions and rotation schedule. Someone must also own change approvals and the break-glass administrator account. Confirm these owners early, because delays in any of them usually extend the timeline more than the technical work does.
Can an internal team set up ClickHouse SSO from the documentation alone?
A team with directory and ClickHouse operations experience can usually do the work, but the risks lie in sequencing and testing. The ClickHouse documentation covers external authenticators for LDAP, Kerberos, SSL X.509, HTTP and JWT, along with access control through SQL, roles and row policies. The common failures are not in the configuration syntax. They include locking out administrators during a rollout, leaving the default user with its full starting permissions, mapping directory groups to roles too broadly and never testing the failure path, such as a directory outage. A team that plans for these issues, tests in pre-production and keeps a tested break-glass account can handle the work internally. If your team lacks one of these skills, a fixed-scope engagement can cover the gap.
What does a fixed-scope ClickHouse SSO quote include?
A fixed-scope quote lists the work, the deliverables, the exclusions and the client responsibilities in writing before any work starts. For SSO, the scope should name each identity source, the directory groups and ClickHouse roles they map to, the service accounts in scope, the environments covered and the verification tests. Deliverables typically include configuration, a runbook for operations and a handover session, but the agreed document defines the exact list. The quote should also state what the client must provide, such as directory access and named owners, because delays on those items affect the timeline. DeployOpen does not publish a price list, so a quote follows from the written scope. Ask for each assumption to be stated so that changes to scope can be priced separately.
Does ClickHouse SSO need ongoing support after go-live?
Ongoing support is not always required, but some SSO work recurs after go-live. The initial build is a one-time cost. Recurring work includes adding or removing directory groups, onboarding new service accounts, renewing certificates, rotating bind credentials and checking that authentication still works after ClickHouse upgrades. Whether you need help with these tasks depends on how often your directory and roles change and whether your team has time to own them. DeployOpen offers ongoing support and upgrades as retainers. The sibling topic on ClickHouse upgrades and support describes how release choices affect this work. Ask any provider which recurring tasks are included in a retainer and which are billed separately.
Why is ClickHouse Cloud not covered on this page?
This page covers self-hosted, Apache-2.0 ClickHouse running in your own infrastructure. ClickHouse Inc. sells ClickHouse Cloud as a separate managed service, and its identity model and operational responsibilities differ from a cluster you run yourself. The work described here, including external authenticators, Keeper and access control on your own servers, does not apply in the same way to a managed service. Comparing the total cost of running ClickHouse yourself with ClickHouse Cloud and other managed options is covered on the sibling cost of ownership and editions page. Read that page before deciding which deployment model the SSO work applies to.
How DeployOpen scopes, builds and hands over ClickHouse identity integration
DeployOpen plans, implements, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure, including ClickHouse identity integration. Each engagement is fixed-scope, with scope and deliverables agreed in writing before any build work starts, and ongoing support is available as a retainer.
How we scope
- Inventory which identity sources must authenticate ClickHouse users and services, such as LDAP, Kerberos, X.509 or JWT.
- Map directory groups to ClickHouse roles, row policies and settings profiles in a written access model.
- Define how service accounts, the default user and break-glass access are handled and who approves them.
How we build
- Configure the chosen external authenticators and access control objects in a pre-production ClickHouse environment first.
- Test login, group mapping and permission boundaries with representative users, including negative cases that must be denied.
- Verify that expired credentials, removed group members and disabled directory accounts lose access as intended.
How we hand over
- Deliver configuration files, SQL access control definitions and a runbook describing each identity path and its owner.
- Document the test results, known limitations and the steps your team needs to add or revoke a mapped group.
- Walk your operations and security staff through troubleshooting for failed logins and misconfigured group mappings.
How we support
- Review identity configuration again when you plan a ClickHouse version upgrade, since authenticator behavior should be retested.
- Offer ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing under a retainer agreed in writing.
- Confirm with your identity team how directory changes, certificate rotation and key renewal will reach ClickHouse.
