FIPS 140-3 Certification

This image is FIPS-validated to ensure its cryptographic operations meet the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) required for secure government and regulated environments. Its core cryptographic modules are validated under the NIST Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) and comply with the FIPS 140-3 standard.

To verify that the FIPS 140-3 provider is configured and active, follow the instructions in the FIPS compliance tab.

Try It Out

To take the Minimus Cassandra image for a test run, you can either run a cluster of two Cassandra nodes on a single host or on two separate machines. This guide shows both options.

docker network create minimus-network

Start the first Cassandra server instance:

docker run -d --rm --name minimus-cassandra \
--network minimus-network \
-e MAX_HEAP_SIZE=512M -e HEAP_NEWSIZE=200M \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips

We recommend adding the flags to control the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) memory settings. Without them, it's common to run into OOM errors for exceeding Docker container memory limits.

Check the internal IP address of the container:

docker inspect -f '{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' minimus-cassandra

Next, run the second node on the same host machine, "seeding" it from the original server and adding it to the cluster. Use the environment variable CASSANDRA_SEEDS and reference the server by its internal IP address:

docker run -d --name minimus-cassandra-2 \
--network minimus-network \
-e CASSANDRA_SEEDS={IP of the first node} \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips

Check the logs of the first node for a message that the nodes are connected:

docker logs -f minimus-cassandra 2>&1 | grep  "is now part of the cluster"

For example:

INFO  [GossipStage:1] 2026-04-19T07:34:30,155 Gossiper.java:1529 - Node /172.19.0.3:7000 is now part of the cluster

docker run --rm -d --name minimus-cassandra \
-e CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS={external IP} -p 7000:7000 \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips

Next, run the second node, expose its gossip IP and port, and seed it from the original server, referring to the original server by its IP:

docker run --rm -d --name minimus-cassandra \
-e CASSANDRA_BROADCAST_ADDRESS={external IP} -p 7000:7000 \
-e CASSANDRA_SEEDS={IP of the first instance} \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips

docker run -it --rm --network minimus-network \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips cqlsh minimus-cassandra

You should see something like this:

Connected to Test Cluster at minimus-cassandra:9042
[cqlsh 6.2.0 | Cassandra 5.0.4 | CQL spec 3.4.7 | Native protocol v5]
Use HELP for help.
cqlsh> 

Enter the command:

DESCRIBE KEYSPACES;

The output will print the keyspaces in your Cassandra cluster, for example:

system       system_distributed  system_traces  system_virtual_schema
system_auth  system_schema       system_views 

docker run -d --name minimus-cassandra-data \
-v $(pwd)/datadir:/var/lib/cassandra \
reg.mini.dev/cassandra-fips

Note that testing with Docker Compose is not recommended as the server will not accept incoming connections until it has completed initialization, which may lead to issues.

Technical Considerations

The Cassandra-FIPS image provided by Minimus is a FIPS-validated, slim, security-hardened alternative to the public image.

Terms & Info

This catalog is published by Minimus. All product names, logos, and marks, other than those belonging to Minimus, shown are owned by their respective rights holders and appear here only to identify the open source software each image contains. Minimus claims no ownership of those marks and implies no affiliation with, endorsement by, certification by, or sponsorship by any rights holder.

Images are provided "as-is" without warranty of any kind. "Hardened" refers to the security configuration applied at the time of build and does not constitute a guarantee of ongoing security or absence of vulnerabilities. The free tier is provided without support, SLA, or guaranteed patching timelines. Security updates may be applied to paid subscriptions before or instead of free tier images. By pulling or using any image you agree to our Terms of Use.