I'm looking for a deeper understanding of how Cassandra interacts with the system_auth keyspace to authenticate/authorize users.
Here is what I have pieced together. Please let me know if I am on the right track. A user attempts to connect to Cassandra. Cassandra checks against system_auth for that user @ LOCAL_ONE - - If the user exists, a connection is established. When CQL is executed, C* again checks system_auth for that user @ LOCAL_ONE to determine if it has the correct privileges to perform the CQL. If so, it executes the CQL and the permissions are stored in a cache. During the cache validity timeframe, future requests for ANY user stored in the cache do not require a lookup against system_auth. After the cache validity runs out, any new requests will require a lookup against system_auth. -- Jacob Shadix
