System Administration Guide: Security Services

Decrypting the Conversation Key in Secure RPC

    When the server receives the transmission from the client, the following occurs:

  1. The keyserver that is local to the server looks up the client's public key in the public key database.

  2. The keyserver uses the client's public key and the server's secret key to deduce the common key. The common key is the same common key that is computed by the client. Only the server and the client can calculate the common key because the calculation requires knowing one of the secret keys.

  3. The kernel uses the common key to decrypt the conversation key.

  4. The kernel calls the keyserver to decrypt the client's timestamp with the decrypted conversation key.