Kerberos Backend for LDAP

Dr. Greg Wettstein greg at wind.enjellic.com
Tue Apr 15 10:27:50 EDT 2003


On Apr 15,  8:50am, Matthew Smith wrote:
} Subject: Kerberos Backend for LDAP

Hi Matt, hope that your day is going well.

> Does anyone know of a Kerberos backend for LDAP (preferably 
> SunOne/iPlanet or OpenLDAP)?  I AM NOT talking about authenication (I 
> know about GSSAPI/SASL, and {KRB}:Princ), but rather, I would like to 
> see princ information via an ldap interface.  I would like to open up my 
> LDAP utility, bind to this LDAP interface, and see information such as 
> enc-types, modified time, expiration time, etc (obviously, a schema 
> definition would be necessary).
> In the end, I would like to combine this interface with my "Enterprise 
> Information" LDAP server, behind some sort of LDAP proxy, to provide a 
> single cohesive LDAP view of all my "Identity" information.
> 
> Any direction is greatly appreciated!  Thanks,

I believe that such a facility has been implemented for Heimdal
Kerberos.  I don't have a URL at hand but you may want to take a look
at their WEB site or Google for a combination of Heimdal and LDAP.  I
suspect that Luke from PADL may chime in, I believe that they have
implemented something like this as well.

That being said, as a systems architect, I would not go the route of
putting authentication credential information into a directory
server.  Losing the directory server to either an internal or external
security intrusion means that you have lost all authentication
integrity for your organization.

Like most other issues in IT this is probably ultimately a religious
debate.  Without speaking for the MIT guys I think that they strongly
disfavor the notion of putting this information in directory servers
as well.

My prediction for the future is that the next major wave of security
issues are going to focus on directory services.  I'm pretty confident
that this issue is flying under people's radar screens right now.
The increasing use of directory enabled computing architectures will
make the directory servers a high yield target for both internal and
external based security penetration attempts.  This is especially
problematic if the directory serves as the repository for both
authentication and authorization information.

Its still vaporware until I get the GPL issues resolved with the
source code but concern over the integrity of the directory server
drove much of the architecture in the Hurderos system.  Specifically
we were looking at how to provide an authorization system which was
robust in the face of directory compromise.

Once again its personal prejudice but I'm not a big believer in having
the directory itself be the total repository of all identity
information.  The approach that we took in Hurderos was to use a
strategy akin to a meta-directory system to manage identity
information.  In this model the directory servers became the 'visible'
repository for identity information.  From a practical perspective,
representational or characterizing information about an identity takes
many forms, some of which make sense to be exported while other
information simply isn't relevant.

> -Matt

Best of luck with your work.

}-- End of excerpt from Matthew Smith

As always,
Dr. G.W. Wettstein, Ph.D.   Enjellic Systems Development, LLC.
4206 N. 19th Ave.           Specializing in information infra-structure
Fargo, ND  58102            development.
PH: 701-281-4950            WWW: http://www.enjellic.com
FAX: 701-281-3949           EMAIL: greg at enjellic.com
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