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Kerberos authentication category, Kerberos authentication procedure – HP System Management Homepage-Software User Manual

Page 51

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To import a certificate to the trusted certificates list:

1.

Select Settings from the menu.

2.

In the System Management Homepage box, click the Security link.

3.

Click the Trusted Management Servers link.

4.

In the Add Certificate area, click the Import Certificate Data radio button.

5.

Copy and paste the Base64-encoded certificate into the textbox.

6.

Click Import.

To add a certificate from a server:

1.

Select Settings from the menu.

2.

In the System Management Homepage box, click the Security link.

3.

Click the Trusted Management Servers link.

4.

In the Add Certificate From Server area, click the Add Certificate From Server radio button.

5.

In the Server Name textbox, enter the IP address or server name of the HP SIM server.

6.

Click Add.

Kerberos Authentication Category

Kerberos

is a trusted third-party network authentication protocol for client/server applications by using

secret-key cryptography developed at

MIT

. Kerberos allows different hosts and users to authenticate and

confirm the identity of each other.

One primary use of Kerberos is for offering

Single Sign-On (SSO)

capability on secure networks. Usually in

a Kerberos environment users log in only once at the start of their sessions, acquiring Kerberos credentials
that are used transparently to log in on all other services available, such as SSH, FTP, and authenticated
web sessions.

A Kerberos domain is a

realm

and is expressed in all capital letters. For example, the Kerberos realm for

smhkerberos.com is

SMHKERBEROS.COM.

Principals

are users and services/hosts that are present in a Kerberos realm and are allowed to authenticate

to each other. A

user

has a principal name such as group@REALM (for example, [email protected]),

and a service has a principal name like service/FQDN@REALM (for example,
HTTP/[email protected]

or

host/[email protected]

).

Kerberos Authentication Procedure

The following outlines the process when a user accesses secure services in a Kerberos realm.

The process only occurs when the user initially logs in to a Kerberos realm and tries to perform the first access
to a Kerberos-secured service.

1.

The user logs in to the system (client) using his or her domain username and password.

2.

The user’s password is hashed, and this hash becomes the user’s secret key.

3.

When the user tries to access a service, a message informs the AS that the user wants to access that
service.

4.

If the user is in the AS database, two messages are sent back to the client:
a.

A Client/TGS session key is encrypted with the user’s secret key, which is used in the communication
with the TGS.

b.

A Ticket-Granting Ticket (TGT) is encrypted with the secret key of the TGS. A ticket is used in
Kerberos to prove one’s identity. The TGT allows the client to obtain other tickets for communication
with network services.

5.

Upon receiving these two messages, the client decrypts the message containing the Client/TGS session
key.

The following process occurs every time a user wants to authenticate to a service:

1.

When the user requests a service, the client sends two messages to the TGS:

A message composed of the TGT and the requested service

An authenticator, is made up of the client’s ID and the current timestamp encrypted with the
Client/TGS session key received before

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