Secure Communication

The basis of secure communication is requiring authentication with encryption. Authentication helps ensure that the source and the destination are the intended parties. Encryption codes the communication at the source, and decodes the communication at the target. Encryption prevents intruders from reading any transmissions that the intruders might manage to intercept. The Solaris operating environment features for secure communication include the following:

• Sun^TM Enterprise Authentication Module (SEAM) – A client/server architecture that provides encryption with authentication. See Chapter 13, Introduction to SEAM.

• Internet Protocol Security Architecture (IPsec) – An architecture that provides IP datagram protection. Protections include confidentiality, strong integrity of the data, data authentication, and partial sequence integrity. Partial sequence integrity is replay protection. See “IPsec (Overview)” in System Administration Guide: IP Services.

• Solaris Secure Shell – A protocol for protecting data transfers and interactive user network sessions from eavesdropping, session hijacking, and man-in-the-middle attacks. Strong authentication is provided through public key cryptography. X windows services and other network services can be tunneled safely over Secure Shell connections for additional protection. See Chapter 11, Using Solaris Secure Shell (Tasks).