879fc6b8bc
git-svn-id: svn://svn.h5l.se/heimdal/trunk/heimdal@11176 ec53bebd-3082-4978-b11e-865c3cabbd6b
74 lines
2.4 KiB
Groff
74 lines
2.4 KiB
Groff
.\" $Id$
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.\"
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.Dd September 1, 2000
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.Dt KERBEROS 8
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.Os HEIMDAL
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.Sh NAME
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.Nm kerberos
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.Nd introduction to the Kerberos system
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.Sh DESCRIPTION
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Kerberos is a network authentication system. Its purpose is to
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securely authenticate users and services in an insecure network
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environment.
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.Pp
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This is done with a Kerberos server acting as a trusted third party,
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keeping a database with secret keys for all users and services
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(collectively called
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.Em principals ) .
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.Pp
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Each principal belongs to exactly one
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.Em realm ,
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which is the administrative domain in Kerberos. A realm usually
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corresponds to an organisation, and the realm should normally be
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derived from that organisation's domain name. A realm is served by one
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or more Kerberos servers.
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.Pp
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The authentication process involves exchange of
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.Sq tickets
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and
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.Sq authenticators
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which together prove the principal's identity.
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.Pp
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When you login to the Kerberos system, either through the normal
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system login or with the
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.Xr kinit 1
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program, you acquire a
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.Em ticket granting ticket
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which allows you to get new tickets for other services, such as
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.Ic telnet
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or
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.Ic ftp ,
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without giving your password.
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.Pp
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For more information on how Kerberos works, and other general Kerberos
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questions see the Kerberos FAQ at
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.Pa http://www.nrl.navy.mil/CCS/people/kenh/kerberos-faq.html .
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.Pp
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For setup instructions see the Heimdal Texinfo manual.
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.Sh SEE ALSO
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.Xr ftp 1 ,
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.Xr kdestroy 1 ,
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.Xr kinit 1 ,
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.Xr klist 1 ,
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.Xr kpasswd 1 ,
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.Xr telnet 1
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.Sh HISTORY
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The Kerberos authentication system was developed in the late 1980's as
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part of the Athena Project at the Massachusetts Institute of
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Technology. Versions one through three never reached outside MIT, but
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version 4 was (and still is) quite popular, especially in the academic
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community, but is also used in commercial products like the AFS
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filesystem.
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.Pp
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The problems with version 4 are that it has many limitations, the code
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was not too well written (since it had been developed over a long
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time), and it has a number of known security problems. To resolve many
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of these issues work on version five started, and resulted in IETF
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RFC1510 in 1993. Since then much work has been put into the further
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development, and a new RFC will hopefully appear soon.
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.Pp
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This manual manual page is part of the
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.Nm Heimdal
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Kerberos 5 distribution, which has been in development at the Royal
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Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, since about 1997.
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