Sun OpenSSO Enterprise 8.0 Administration Reference

Kerberos Configuration

Kerberos is a security profile supported by the web services security to secure web services communications between a web service client and a web service provider. In a typical scenario, a user authenticates to the desktop and invokes a web service and the web service client. This requires a Kerberos ticket to secure the request to web service provider by identifying his principal as Kerberos token. Typically, Kerberos-based web services security is used in same the context of Kerberos domain (realm) as opposed to across boundaries, for example SAML-based web services security. However, Kerberos is one of the strongest authentication mechanisms, especially in the Windows Domain Controller environment.

Kerberos Domain Server

This attribute specifies the Kerberos Distribution Center (the domain controller) hostname. You must enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the domain controller.

Kerberos Domain

This attribute specifies the Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC) domain name. Depending up on your configuration, the domain name of the domain controller may be different than the OpenSSO Enterprise domain name.

Kerberos Service Principal

Specifies the web service principal registered with the KDC.

Use the following format:

HTTP/hostname.domainname@dc_domain_name

hostname and domainame represent the hostname and domain name of the OpenSSO Enterprise instance. dc_domain_name is the Kerberos domain in which the Windows Kerberos server (domain controller) resides. It is possible that the Kerberos server is different from the domain name of the OpenSSO Enterprise instance.

Kerberos Ticket Cache Directory

Specifies the Kerberos TGT (Ticket Granting Ticket) cache directory. When the user authenticates to the desktop or initializes using kinit (the command used to obtain the TGT from KDC), the TGT is stored in the local cache, as defined in this attribute.