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kerberos(7)                      MIT Kerberos                      kerberos(7)




NAME

       kerberos - Overview of using Kerberos


DESCRIPTION

       The  Kerberos  system authenticates individual users in a network envi-
       ronment.  After authenticating yourself to Kerberos, you can  use  Ker-
       beros-enabled  programs without having to present passwords or certifi-
       cates to those programs.

       If you receive the following response from kinit(1):

       kinit: Client not found in Kerberos database while getting initial cre-
       dentials

       you haven't been registered as a Kerberos user.  See your system admin-
       istrator.

       A Kerberos name usually contains three parts.  The first  is  the  pri-
       mary,  which  is usually a user's or service's name.  The second is the
       instance, which in the case of a user is usually null.  Some users  may
       have privileged instances, however, such as root or admin.  In the case
       of a service, the instance is the fully qualified name of  the  machine
       on  which  it  runs;  i.e.  there  can be an ssh service running on the
       machine ABC (ssh/ABC@REALM), which is different from  the  ssh  service
       running  on  the machine XYZ (ssh/XYZ@REALM).  The third part of a Ker-
       beros name is the realm.  The realm corresponds to the Kerberos service
       providing  authentication for the principal.  Realms are conventionally
       all-uppercase, and often match the end of hostnames in the  realm  (for
       instance, host01.example.com might be in realm EXAMPLE.COM).

       When  writing a Kerberos name, the principal name is separated from the
       instance (if not null) by a slash, and the  realm  (if  not  the  local
       realm) follows, preceded by an "@" sign.  The following are examples of
       valid Kerberos names:

          david
          jennifer/admin
          joeuser@BLEEP.COM
          cbrown/root@FUBAR.ORG

       When you authenticate yourself with Kerberos you get  an  initial  Ker-
       beros ticket.  (A Kerberos ticket is an encrypted protocol message that
       provides authentication.)  Kerberos uses this ticket for network utili-
       ties  such  as ssh.  The ticket transactions are done transparently, so
       you don't have to worry about their management.

       Note, however, that tickets expire.  Administrators may configure  more
       privileged  tickets,  such as those with service or instance of root or
       admin, to expire in a few minutes, while tickets that carry more  ordi-
       nary  privileges may be good for several hours or a day.  If your login
       session extends beyond the time limit, you will have to re-authenticate
       yourself to Kerberos to get new tickets using the kinit(1) command.

       Some  tickets  are renewable beyond their initial lifetime.  This means
       that kinit -R can  extend  their  lifetime  without  requiring  you  to
       re-authenticate.

       If  you wish to delete your local tickets, use the kdestroy(1) command.

       Kerberos tickets can be forwarded.  In order to  forward  tickets,  you
       must  request  forwardable  tickets when you kinit.  Once you have for-
       wardable tickets, most Kerberos programs have a command line option  to
       forward them to the remote host.  This can be useful for, e.g., running
       kinit on your local machine and then sshing into another  to  do  work.
       Note that this should not be done on untrusted machines since they will
       then have your tickets.


ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       Several environment variables affect the operation of  Kerberos-enabled
       programs.  These include:

       KRB5CCNAME
              Default  name  for  the  credentials  cache  file,  in  the form
              TYPE:residual.  The type of the default cache may determine  the
              availability  of  a  cache collection.  FILE is not a collection
              type; KEYRING, DIR, and KCM are.

              If not set, the value of default_ccache_name from  configuration
              files  (see KRB5_CONFIG) will be used.  If that is also not set,
              the  default  type  is  FILE,  and  the  residual  is  the  path
              /tmp/krb5cc_*uid*, where uid is the decimal user ID of the user.

       KRB5_KTNAME
              Specifies the location of the default keytab file, in  the  form
              TYPE:residual.   If no type is present, the FILE type is assumed
              and residual is the pathname of  the  keytab  file.   If  unset,
              FILE:/etc/krb5.keytab will be used.

       KRB5_CONFIG
              Specifies  the location of the Kerberos configuration file.  The
              default is /opt/local/etc/krb5.conf.  Multiple filenames can  be
              specified,  separated  by  a  colon; all files which are present
              will be read.

       KRB5_KDC_PROFILE
              Specifies the location of the KDC configuration file, which con-
              tains  additional configuration directives for the Key Distribu-
              tion Center daemon and  associated  programs.   The  default  is
              /opt/local/var/krb5kdc/kdc.conf.

       KRB5RCACHENAME
              (New  in  release  1.18)  Specifies  the location of the default
              replay cache, in the form type:residual.  The file2 type with  a
              pathname residual specifies a replay cache file in the version-2
              format in the specified location.  The none  type  (residual  is
              ignored)  disables  the replay cache.  The dfl type (residual is
              ignored) indicates the default, which uses a file2 replay  cache
              in a temporary directory.  The default is dfl:.

       KRB5RCACHETYPE
              Specifies   the   type   of   the   default   replay  cache,  if
              KRB5RCACHENAME is unspecified.  No residual can be specified, so
              none and dfl are the only useful types.

       KRB5RCACHEDIR
              Specifies  the directory used by the dfl replay cache type.  The
              default is the value of  the  TMPDIR  environment  variable,  or
              /var/tmp if TMPDIR is not set.

       KRB5_TRACE
              Specifies  a  filename to write trace log output to.  Trace logs
              can help illuminate decisions made internally  by  the  Kerberos
              libraries.   For example, env KRB5_TRACE=/dev/stderr kinit would
              send tracing  information  for  kinit(1)  to  /dev/stderr.   The
              default is not to write trace log output anywhere.

       KRB5_CLIENT_KTNAME
              Default     client     keytab     file    name.     If    unset,
              FILE:/opt/local/var/krb5/user/%{euid}/client.keytab   will    be
              used).

       KPROP_PORT
              kprop(8) port to use.  Defaults to 754.

       GSS_MECH_CONFIG
              Specifies a filename containing GSSAPI mechanism module configu-
              ration.  The default  is  to  read  /opt/local/etc/gss/mech  and
              files    with    a    .conf    suffix   within   the   directory
              /opt/local/etc/gss/mech.d.

       Most environment variables are disabled for certain programs,  such  as
       login  system  programs  and  setuid programs, which are designed to be
       secure when run within an untrusted process environment.


SEE ALSO

       kdestroy(1),  kinit(1),  klist(1),  kswitch(1),   kpasswd(1),   ksu(1),
       krb5.conf(5),   kdc.conf(5),   kadmin(1),   kadmind(8),   kdb5_util(8),
       krb5kdc(8)


BUGS


AUTHORS

       Steve Miller, MIT Project Athena/Digital Equipment Corporation
       Clifford Neuman, MIT Project Athena
       Greg Hudson, MIT Kerberos Consortium
       Robbie Harwood, Red Hat, Inc.



HISTORY

       The MIT Kerberos 5 implementation was developed at MIT, with  contribu-
       tions from many outside parties.  It is currently maintained by the MIT
       Kerberos Consortium.


RESTRICTIONS

       Copyright 1985, 1986, 1989-1996, 2002, 2011, 2018  Masachusetts  Insti-
       tute of Technology


AUTHOR

       MIT


COPYRIGHT

       1985-2019, MIT



1.18                                                               kerberos(7)

kerberos 1.18 - Generated Fri Feb 14 16:00:00 CST 2020
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