Automatic connection using Remote authentication into Vertica.

For shell-based login and scripts, one option is to set environment variables: https://www.vertica.com/docs/9.3.x/HTML/Content/Authoring/ConnectingToVertica/vsql/vsqlEnvironmentVariables.htm
E.g. set VSQL_USER, VSQL_PASSWORD, VSQL_HOST and the user or script can run "vsql" and log in automatically using the user, password, host in the environment.

Setting the VSQL_PASSWORD as env. variable for scheduler job user is a concern as its exposed to other users as well.

It's also possible to set password on the command line with the -w switch, though this is also accessible to any user who can read the script.
Is it possible to isolate the scheduler user and home directory, setting ownership to specific user/group with mode 600 on files and 700 on folders, similar to requirement for SSH keys in the .ssh folder?
I'm not sure there is a mechanism that would not require a secret to be stored for automatic login. For example, Kerberos and TLS client certificate still require a file (ticket or private key) to be stored in a location accessible to the user.

Just to confirm, your scenario would be that users shh / login to a Vertica node and then run vsql ? In that case, you could use a LOCAL TRUST authentication or an IDENT authentication if you want to limit access to only certain OS users.
https://www.vertica.com/docs/10.0.x/HTML/Content/Authoring/Security/ClientAuth/ConfiguringIdentAuthentication.htm

@Bryan_H said:
It's also possible to set password on the command line with the -w switch, though this is also accessible to any user who can read the script.
Is it possible to isolate the scheduler user and home directory, setting ownership to specific user/group with mode 600 on files and 700 on folders, similar to requirement for SSH keys in the .ssh folder?
I'm not sure there is a mechanism that would not require a secret to be stored for automatic login. For example, Kerberos and TLS client certificate still require a file (ticket or private key) to be stored in a location accessible to the user.

Setting the file permissions was the option we had with securing passwords, until unless we have other authentication methods.