Implementing FIPS compliance in Redpanda

FIPS 140-2 compliance ensures cryptographic modules meet U.S. government security standards using validated algorithms like AES, SHA-256, and RSA. Redpanda supports FIPS compliance through OpenSSL 3.0.9 (moving to 3.1.2 for FIPS 140-3) in enterprise deployments. Implementation requires enabling FIPS at the OS level (demonstrated on RHEL), installing redpanda-fips and redpanda-rpk-fips packages, and configuring the broker with fips_mode settings (disabled, enabled, or permissive). The cluster enforces FIPS-validated cryptographic modules immediately on startup and exits if the OS isn't properly configured.