How to Access a Kerberos Protected NFS File System as the root User

This procedure allows a client to access a NFS file system that requires Kerberos authentication with the root ID privilege. In particular, when the NFS file system is shared with options like: -o sec=krb5,root=client1.sun.com.

1. Become superuser.

2. Start kadmin.

   You can use the Graphical Kerberos Administration Tool to add a principal, as explained in How to Create a New Kerberos Principal. To do so, you must log in with one of the admin principal names that you created when you configured the master KDC. However, the following example shows how to add the required principals by using the command line.

   denver # /usr/sbin/kadmin -p kws/admin Enter password: <Type kws/admin password> kadmin:

   1. Create a root principal for the NFS client.

      This principal is used to provide root equivalent access to NFS mounted file systems that require Kerberos authentication. The root principal should be a two component principal with the second component the host name of the Kerberos client system to avoid the creation of a realm wide root principal. Note that when the principal instance is a host name, the FQDN must be specified in lowercase letters, regardless of the case of the domain name in the /etc/resolv.conf file.

      kadmin: addprinc -randkey root/client.example.com Principal "root/client.example.com" created. kadmin:

   2. Add the root principal to the server's keytab file.

      This step is required if you added a root principal so that the client can have root access to file systems mounted using the NFS service. This step is also required if non-interactive root access is needed, such as running cron jobs as root.

      kadmin: ktadd root/client.example.com Entry for principal root/client.example.com with kvno 3, encryption type AES-256 CTS mode with 96-bit SHA-1 HMAC added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. Entry for principal root/client.example.com with kvno 3, encryption type AES-128 CTS mode with 96-bit SHA-1 HMAC added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. Entry for principal root/client.example.com with kvno 3, encryption type Triple DES cbc mode with HMAC/sha1 added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. Entry for principal root/client.example.com with kvno 3, encryption type ArcFour with HMAC/md5 added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. Entry for principal root/client.example.com with kvno 3, encryption type DES cbc mode with RSA-MD5 added to keytab WRFILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab. kadmin:

   3. Quit kadmin.

      kadmin: quit