Uses of kerberos?

[Jonathan Wackley]

Klingon wrote:

> Hi
>
> I am very new to the kerberos subject. I was wondering where it is used. Is
> it used in any of our standard windows operating systems like
> 95,98,nt,me,2000,mx,xp? Or is it maby standard in any linux platforms
> (which?)? If this isn't. Which people or organizations are glad to use it
> for all safety kinds (maybe nasa?,..... I really don't know actually)?
>
> This are a lot of questions at once, but can someone please explain me some.
>
> Thx
>
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I started with kerberos in January.  The system as I understand it works on
most flavours of Windows, unix (including Linux) and Macintosh.  The intro page
for KfW (Kerberos for Windows) is located at;

http://web.mit.edu/is/help/kfw/

For an introduction into kerberos in general can be found at;

http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/

In a nutshell, Kerberos is used as a replacement for standard authentication.
The standard authentication mechanisms generally suffer from defects that can
be exploited (Read: Hacked) to gain unauthorized access to an otherwise secure
system.  Simply, it is a mechanism to have stronger security on machines where
the old password related programs are not enough.

jonw