Linux Security Cookbook

4.12. Adding Users to a Kerberos Realm

Problem

You want to add a new user to an existing MIT Kerberos-5 realm.

Solution

Use kadmin on any realm host:

$ kadmin
Authenticating as principal pat/[e-mail] with password.

To add the user named joe:

kadmin: ank -policy users joe
Enter password for principal "[e-mail]": ********
Re-enter password for principal "[e-mail]": ********
Principal "[e-mail]" created.

To give joe administrative privileges:

kadmin: ank -policy admin joe/admin
Enter password for principal "joe/[e-mail]": ********
Re-enter password for principal "joe/[e-mail]": ********
Principal "joe/[e-mail]" created.

and tell Joe his temporary user and admin passwords, which he should immediately change with kpasswd . When finished:

kadmin: quit

Discussion

This is the same procedure we used while setting up your KDC. [Recipe 4.11] You need not be on the KDC to do administration; you can do it remotely with kadmin. The program kadmin.local, which we used before, is only for bootstrapping or other exceptional situations.

See Also

kadmin(8).