.. _kerberos(7):

kerberos
========

DESCRIPTION
-----------

The Kerberos system authenticates individual users in a network
environment.  After authenticating yourself to Kerberos, you can use
Kerberos-enabled programs without having to present passwords or
certificates to those programs.

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

kinit: Client not found in Kerberos database while getting initial
credentials

you haven't been registered as a Kerberos user.  See your system
administrator.

A Kerberos name usually contains three parts.  The first is the
**primary**, 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 Kerberos 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
Kerberos **ticket**.  (A Kerberos ticket is an encrypted protocol
message that provides authentication.)  Kerberos uses this ticket for
network utilities 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 ordinary 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
:ref:`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 :ref:`kdestroy(1)`
command.

Kerberos tickets can be forwarded.  In order to forward tickets, you
must request **forwardable** tickets when you kinit.  Once you have
forwardable 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, |keytab| will be used.

**KRB5_CONFIG**
    Specifies the location of the Kerberos configuration file.  The
    default is |sysconfdir|\ ``/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
    contains additional configuration directives for the Key
    Distribution Center daemon and associated programs.  The default
    is |kdcdir|\ ``/kdc.conf``.

**KRB5RCACHETYPE**
    Specifies the default type of replay cache to use for servers.
    Valid types include ``dfl`` for the normal file type and ``none``
    for no replay cache.  The default is ``dfl``.

**KRB5RCACHEDIR**
    Specifies the default directory for replay caches used by servers.
    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 :ref:`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, |ckeytab| will be
    used).

**KPROP_PORT**
    :ref:`kprop(8)` port to use.  Defaults to 754.

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
--------

:ref:`kdestroy(1)`, :ref:`kinit(1)`, :ref:`klist(1)`,
:ref:`kswitch(1)`, :ref:`kpasswd(1)`, :ref:`ksu(1)`,
:ref:`krb5.conf(5)`, :ref:`kdc.conf(5)`, :ref:`kadmin(1)`,
:ref:`kadmind(8)`, :ref:`kdb5_util(8)`, :ref:`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
contributions from many outside parties.  It is currently maintained
by the MIT Kerberos Consortium.

RESTRICTIONS
------------

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