System Administration Guide: Security Services

ProcedureHow to Establish Hierarchical Cross-Realm Authentication

The example in this procedure uses two realms, ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM and EAST.EXAMPLE.COM. Cross-realm authentication will be established in both directions. This procedure must be completed on the master KDC in both realms.

Before You Begin

The master KDC for each realm must be configured. To fully test the authentication process, several Kerberos clients must be configured.

  1. Become superuser on the first master KDC.

  2. Create ticket-granting ticket service principals for the two realms.

    You must log in with one of the admin principal names that was created when you configured the master KDC.


    # /usr/sbin/kadmin -p kws/admin
    Enter password: <Type kws/admin password>
    kadmin: addprinc krbtgt/ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM@EAST.EXAMPLE.COM
    Enter password for principal krgtgt/ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM@EAST.EXAMPLE.COM: <Type password>
    kadmin: addprinc krbtgt/EAST.EXAMPLE.COM@ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM
    Enter password for principal krgtgt/EAST.EXAMPLE.COM@ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM: <Type password>
    kadmin: quit
    

    Note –

    The password that is specified for each service principal must be identical in both KDCs. Thus, the password for the service principal krbtgt/ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM@EAST.EXAMPLE.COM must be the same in both realms.


  3. Add entries to the Kerberos configuration file (krb5.conf) to define domain names for every realm.


    # cat /etc/krb5/krb5.conf
    [libdefaults]
     .
     .
    [domain_realm]
            .eng.east.example.com = ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM
            .east.example.com = EAST.EXAMPLE.COM
    

    In this example, domain names for the ENG.EAST.EXAMPLE.COM and EAST.EXAMPLE.COM realms are defined. It is important to include the subdomain first, because the file is searched top down.

  4. Copy the Kerberos configuration file to all clients in this realm.

    For cross-realm authentication to work, all systems (including slave KDCs and other servers) must have the new version of the Kerberos configuration file (/etc/krb5/krb5.conf) installed.

  5. Repeat all of these steps in the second realm.