Status of Kerberos Support across Samba versions

Chris Young cyoung at idealcorp.com
Mon Apr 10 17:49:17 GMT 2000


Ok, I've been reading through several of the Samba lists and have found enough
information on this to just confuse me furthur.  I'm attempting to get a strong
understanding of the status of Kerberos 5 support in the current development
versions of Samba.

Basically, I would like to standardize our network's authentication structure
and right now, Kerberos seems to serve this purpose best.  I understand that
Samba has compilation option to enable Kerberos support, however I don't quite
understand how this comes into play.  I've been looking through the code
(althought my programming skills leave alot to be desired) and everything is
still not clean.

I would appreciate a good summary of where Kerberos support is currently and
where it might be heading so that I can plan everything accordingly.

The basic questions that I have regarding Samba and Kerberos are:

If Samba support Kerberos, does this mean that it actually support Kerberos
TICKETS or does it just merely take the encrypted (or, most likely _plain
text_) password and pass it on the the KDC for a yes or no?

If this IS the case, then what is the difference in this approach vs. using
Kerberos PAM modules and configuring Samba to use PAM for authentication?

Am I totally nuts and have this whole thing confused?  I'm just trying to
understand what the keberos compile option get you.  Also, I read discussions
regarding PAM support in Samba and I don't quite get how Samba utilizes this
for authentication.  I would GREATLY appreciate someone in the know posting a
good explanation of Samba/Kerberos integration and the basics of how it works.

-- 
Thank you,
Christopher Young, Senior Systems Administrator

I.D.E.A.L. Technology Corporation
1109 East Concord Street
Orlando, Florida  32803

http://www.idealcorp.com
I.ntegration D.evelopment E.ducation A.ll L.inux


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