MSK with SASL/SCRAM authentication. I can access the cluster but cant perform any action

Question

Hi,

We're currently building an MSK cluster. We use 2 types of authentication for 2 different clients.

The IAM authentication works fine.

But for the SASL/SCRAM authentication that it's not the case, we created a secret for username/password connection and linked it to the MSK cluster.

Using our client or with a UI client for windows it's the same issue we have a connection but with limited functionalities (like creating a topic or reading one).

Please take a look at the error the UI clients returns :

> Could not complete DescribeConfigs action: you can try to continue with limited functionality. ClusterAuthorizationException: Cluster authorization failed.
Make sure that your user has all access rights (DescribeConsumerGroups, DescribeCluster, DescribeConfigs) for full functionality.

Also take a look at our AWS secret policy JSON file :

```
{
  "Version" : "2012-10-17",
  "Statement" : [ {
    "Sid" : "......",
    "Effect" : "Allow",
    "Principal" : {
      "Service" : "kafka.amazonaws.com"
    },
    "Action" : "secretsmanager:getSecretValue",
    "Resource" : "arn:aws:secretsmanager:eu-west-3...............Z"
  } ]
}
```

Do we need to modify the ACLs policies directly on the Kafka instance ? How?

Thanks

Answer

It seems like you've changed `allow.everyone.if.no.acl.found` to `false`.

If that's the case, then you won't have access with SCRAM auth method until you enable ACLs. So, you need to run kafka-acls command and add permissions to the user you use to read topics, or write...

For example, you will need to use a user that already has permissions to set up ACLs, alternatively, you can use unauthenticated method, or zookeeper instead of bootstrap servers, so authentication is not checked:
```
kafka/bin/kafka-acls.sh --bootstrap-server msk:9096 \
  --command-config adminclient-configs.conf \
  --add \
  --allow-principal User:boris \
  --allow-principal User:ed \
  --operation read \
  --operation write \
  --topic my-topic
```

MSK with SASL/SCRAM authentication. I can access the cluster but cant perform any action

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