1.3 Overview

This section describes RFC 1510 from a protocol point of view¹.

Kerberos provides a means of verifying the identities of principals, (e.g., a workstation user or a network server) on an open (unprotected) network. This is accomplished without relying on authentication by the host operating system, without basing trust on host addresses, without requiring physical security of all the hosts on the network, and under the assumption that packets traveling along the network can be read, modified, and inserted at will. (Note, however, that many applications use Kerberos' functions only upon the initiation of a stream-based network connection, and assume the absence of any "hijackers" who might subvert such a connection. Such use implicitly trusts the host addresses involved.) Kerberos performs authentication under these conditions as a trusted third- party authentication service by using conventional cryptography, i.e., shared secret key. (shared secret key - Secret and private are often used interchangeably in the literature. In our usage, it takes two (or more) to share a secret, thus a shared DES key is a secret key. Something is only private when no one but its owner knows it. Thus, in public key cryptosystems, one has a public and a private key.)

The authentication process proceeds as follows: A client sends a request to the authentication server (AS) requesting "credentials" for a given server. The AS responds with these credentials, encrypted in the client's key. The credentials consist of 1) a "ticket" for the server and 2) a temporary encryption key (often called a "session key"). The client transmits the ticket (which contains the client's identity and a copy of the session key, all encrypted in the server's key) to the server. The session key (now shared by the client and server) is used to authenticate the client, and may optionally be used to authenticate the server. It may also be used to encrypt further communication between the two parties or to exchange a separate sub-session key to be used to encrypt further communication.

The implementation consists of one or more authentication servers running on physically secure hosts. The authentication servers maintain a database of principals (i.e., users and servers) and their secret keys. Code libraries provide encryption and implement the Kerberos protocol. In order to add authentication to its transactions, a typical network application adds one or two calls to the Kerberos library, which results in the transmission of the necessary messages to achieve authentication.

The Kerberos protocol consists of several sub-protocols (or exchanges). There are two methods by which a client can ask a Kerberos server for credentials. In the first approach, the client sends a cleartext request for a ticket for the desired server to the AS. The reply is sent encrypted in the client's secret key. Usually this request is for a ticket-granting ticket (TGT) which can later be used with the ticket-granting server (TGS). In the second method, the client sends a request to the TGS. The client sends the TGT to the TGS in the same manner as if it were contacting any other application server which requires Kerberos credentials. The reply is encrypted in the session key from the TGT.

Once obtained, credentials may be used to verify the identity of the principals in a transaction, to ensure the integrity of messages exchanged between them, or to preserve privacy of the messages. The application is free to choose whatever protection may be necessary.

To verify the identities of the principals in a transaction, the client transmits the ticket to the server. Since the ticket is sent "in the clear" (parts of it are encrypted, but this encryption doesn't thwart replay) and might be intercepted and reused by an attacker, additional information is sent to prove that the message was originated by the principal to whom the ticket was issued. This information (called the authenticator) is encrypted in the session key, and includes a timestamp. The timestamp proves that the message was recently generated and is not a replay. Encrypting the authenticator in the session key proves that it was generated by a party possessing the session key. Since no one except the requesting principal and the server know the session key (it is never sent over the network in the clear) this guarantees the identity of the client.

The integrity of the messages exchanged between principals can also be guaranteed using the session key (passed in the ticket and contained in the credentials). This approach provides detection of both replay attacks and message stream modification attacks. It is accomplished by generating and transmitting a collision-proof checksum (elsewhere called a hash or digest function) of the client's message, keyed with the session key. Privacy and integrity of the messages exchanged between principals can be secured by encrypting the data to be passed using the session key passed in the ticket, and contained in the credentials.