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Kerberos: The Definitive Guide
book

Kerberos: The Definitive Guide

by Jason Garman
August 2003
Intermediate to advanced
270 pages
10h 9m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Kerberos: The Definitive Guide

Password Changing

The original Kerberos specifications had no provisions to allow users to change their own passwords. However, the ability for users to change their passwords is a requirement for any practical authentication scheme, so Kerberos 4 implementations grafted on password-changing protocols. As a result, most Kerberos 4 packages implement password changing through a separate administrative protocol, the same protocol that is used to remotely administer the Kerberos database.

Both MIT and kth-krb run the password through the string2key function on the client side to avoid sending even the encrypted text password over the network. This has the advantage of not exposing a plain text password over the network, but has the down side that all password quality checks must be implemented on the client side, so a rogue password-changing client could bypass all quality checks.

The administrative protocols for MIT and kth-krb differ, so there is no interoperability between the password-changing services in either. The kpasswd program from one will not connect to the password-changing service provided by the other.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596004036Errata Page