Anonymous Authentication

In normal use of the GSS-API, the initiator's identity is made available to the acceptor as a result of the context establishment process. However, context initiators can request that their identity not be revealed to the context acceptor.

As an example, consider an application providing access to a database containing medical information, and offering unrestricted access to the service. A client of such a service might want to authenticate the service (in order to establish trust in any information retrieved from it), but might not want the service to be able to obtain the client's identity (perhaps due to privacy concerns about the specific inquiries, or perhaps to avoid being placed on mailing lists).

To request anonymity, set the req_flags argument of gss_init_sec_context() to GSS_C_ANON_FLAG; to check if anonymity is available, check the ret_flags argument to gss_init_sec_context() or gss_accept_sec_context() to see if this same value is returned.

If anonymity is in effect and gss_display_name() is called on a client name returned by gss_accept_sec_context() or gss_inquire_context(), gss_display_name() will produce a generic anonymous name.

It is the application's responsibility to take appropriate action if anonymity is requested but not permitted — the GSS-API will not terminate a context on these grounds.