xref: /freebsd/crypto/heimdal/lib/krb5/kerberos.8 (revision 6990ffd8a95caaba6858ad44ff1b3157d1efba8f)
1.\" $Id: kerberos.8,v 1.2 2001/05/02 08:59:23 assar Exp $
2.\"
3.Dd September 1, 2000
4.Dt KERBEROS 8
5.Os HEIMDAL
6.Sh NAME
7.Nm kerberos
8.Nd introduction to the Kerberos system
9.Sh DESCRIPTION
10Kerberos is a network authentication system. It's purpose is to
11securely authenticate users and services in an insecure network
12environment.
13.Pp
14This is done with a Kerberos server acting as a trusted third party,
15keeping a database with secret keys for all users and services
16(collectively called
17.Em principals ) .
18.Pp
19Each principal belongs to exactly one
20.Em realm ,
21which is the administrative domain in Kerberos. A realm usually
22corresponds to an organisation, and the realm should normally be
23derived from that organisation's domain name. A realm is served by one
24or more Kerberos servers.
25.Pp
26The authentication process involves exchange of
27.Sq tickets
28and
29.Sq authenticators
30which together prove the principal's identity.
31.Pp
32When you login to the Kerberos system, either through the normal
33system login or with the
34.Xr kinit 1
35program, you acquire a
36.Em ticket granting ticket
37which allows you to get new tickets for other services, such as
38.Ic telnet
39or
40.Ic ftp ,
41without giving your password.
42.Pp
43For more information on how Kerberos works, and other general Kerberos
44questions see the Kerberos FAQ at
45.Pa http://www.nrl.navy.mil/CCS/people/kenh/kerberos-faq.html .
46.Pp
47For setup instructions see the Heimdal Texinfo manual.
48.Sh SEE ALSO
49.Xr ftp 1
50.Xr kdestroy 1 ,
51.Xr kinit 1 ,
52.Xr klist 1 ,
53.Xr kpasswd 1 ,
54.Xr telnet 1
55.Sh HISTORY
56The Kerberos authentication system was developed in the late 1980's as
57part of the Athena Project at the Massachusetts Institute of
58Technology. Versions one through three never reached outside MIT, but
59version 4 was (and still is) quite popular, especially in the academic
60community, but is also used in commercial products like the AFS
61filesystem.
62.Pp
63The problems with version 4 are that it has many limitations, the code
64was not too well written (since it had been developed over a long
65time), and it has a number of known security problems. To resolve many
66of these issues work on version five started, and resulted in IETF
67RFC1510 in 1993. Since then much work has been put into the further
68development, and a new RFC will hopefully appear soon.
69.Pp
70This manual manual page is part of the
71.Nm Heimdal
72Kerberos 5 distribution, which has been in development at the Royal
73Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, since about 1997.
74