Secure TiDB Dashboard

Although you need to sign into TiDB Dashboard before accessing it, TiDB Dashboard is designed to be accessed by trusted user entities by default. When you want to provide TiDB Dashboard to external network users or untrusted users for access, take the following measures to avoid security vulnerabilities.

Enhance security of TiDB users

Set a strong password for the TiDB root user

The account system of TiDB Dashboard is consistent with that of TiDB SQL users. By default, TiDB's root user has no password, so accessing TiDB Dashboard does not require password authentication, which will give the malicious visitor high privileges, including executing privileged SQL statements.

It is recommended that you set a strong password for the TiDB root user. See TiDB User Account Management for details. Alternatively, you can disable the TiDB root user.

Create a least-privileged user for TiDB Dashboard

The account system of TiDB Dashboard is consistent with that of TiDB SQL. Users accessing TiDB Dashboard are authenticated and authorized based on TiDB SQL user's privileges. Therefore, TiDB Dashboard requires limited privileges, or merely the read-only privilege. You can configure users to access TiDB Dashboard based on the principle of least privilege, thus avoiding access of high-privileged users.

It is recommended that you create a least-privileged SQL user to access and sign in to TiDB Dashboard. This avoids access of high-privileged users and improves security. See TiDB Dashboard User Management for details.

Use a firewall to block untrusted access

TiDB Dashboard provides services through the PD client port, which defaults to http://IP:2379/dashboard/. Although TiDB Dashboard requires identity authentication, other privileged interfaces (such as http://IP:2379/pd/api/v1/members) in PD carried on the PD client port do not require identity authentication and can perform privileged operations. Therefore, exposing the PD client port directly to the external network is extremely risky.

It is recommended that you take the following measures:

• Use a firewall to prohibit a component from accessing any client port of the PD component via the external network or untrusted network.

  Note

  TiDB, TiKV, and other components need to communicate with the PD component through the PD client port, so do not block access to the internal network between components. Otherwise, the cluster will become unavailable.

• See Use TiDB Dashboard behind a Reverse Proxy to learn how to configure the reverse proxy to safely provide the TiDB Dashboard service on another port to the external network.

How to open access to TiDB Dashboard port when deploying multiple PD instances

In the test environment, you might need to configure the firewall to open the TiDB Dashboard port for external access.

When multiple PD instances are deployed, only one of the PD instances actually runs TiDB Dashboard, and browser redirection occurs when you access other PD instances. Therefore, you need to ensure that the firewall is configured with the correct IP address. For details of this mechanism, see Deployment with multiple PD instances.

When using the TiUP deployment tool, you can view the address of the PD instance that actually runs TiDB Dashboard by running the following command (replace CLUSTER_NAME with the cluster name):

tiup cluster display CLUSTER_NAME --dashboard

The output is the actual TiDB Dashboard address.

The following is a sample output:

http://192.168.0.123:2379/dashboard/

In this example, the firewall needs to be configured with inbound access for the 2379 port of the 192.168.0.123 open IP, and the TiDB Dashboard is accessed via http://192.168.0.123:2379/dashboard/.

Reverse proxy only for TiDB Dashboard

As mentioned in [Use a firewall to block untrusted access](#use-a-firewall-to-block-untrusted access), the services provided under the PD client port include not only TiDB Dashboard (located at http://IP:2379/dashboard/), but also other privileged interfaces in PD (such as http://IP:2379/pd/api/v1/members). Therefore, when using a reverse proxy to provide TiDB Dashboard to the external network, ensure that the services ONLY with the /dashboard prefix are provided (NOT all services under the port) to avoid that the external network can access the privileged interface in PD through the reverse proxy.

It is recommended that you see Use TiDB Dashboard behind a Reverse Proxy to learn a safe and recommended reverse proxy configuration.

Enable TLS for reverse proxy

To further enhance the security of the transport layer, you can enable TLS for reverse proxy, and even introduce mTLS to authenticate user certificates.

See Configuring HTTPS servers and HAProxy SSL Termination for more details.

Other recommended safety measures

• Enable TLS Authentication and Encrypt the Stored Data
• Enable TLS Between TiDB Clients and Servers