GSS API and impersonate client in the server

Douglas E. Engert deengert at anl.gov
Fri Oct 15 14:20:22 EDT 2004


If I am understand you reasoning you don't want to use
SSPI because you have some unix servers and clients.

But the SSPI and Kerberos GSSAPI use the same wire protocol,
so you could be using InitializeSecurityContext on WIndows and
gss_accept_sec_context on UNIXservers.
We do this all the time with a SecureCRT client on Windows using
either Kerberos for Windows gssapi or MS SSPI Kerberos to OpenSSH
sshd server with MIT Kerberos gssapi.

Going the other way with Unix client using gss_init_sec_context and
a windows server using AcceptSecurityContext should also work and
delegation should work. I have not tried this. There may be issues when
you try and use the delegated credential to impersonate the user as
it will need a PAC. Kerberos is strictly authentication. AD add to
the Kerberos ticket authorization information. So it may mean you need to
use AD for the KDC.


Mattias Karlsson wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'm about to kerberize our product and will use the gss api. When
> analyzing the different components in our system I found that I need
> to be able to impersonate the client in the server using the client
> credentials. The reason for doing this is that the server needs to be
> able to access Windows resources (registry) with client permissions.
> 
> How it works in the unkerberized client/server is that the client
> sends it's Windows user and password to the server in the beginning of
> the session. The server does a (WIN API) LogonUser and a
> ImpersonateLoggedOnUser and can then act as the client in that thread.
> 
> I don't want to send user/password over the network but need to be
> able to impersonate the client!
> 
> The Windows SSPI API provides functions like
> InitializeSecurityContext, AcceptSecurityContext and
> ImpersonateSecurityContext but I don't want to use SSPI since I got
> some UNIX servers and clients as well. Is it possible to use the
> delegated_cred_handle or context_handle I get from the gss api call
> gss_accept_sec_context and use it (maybe cast it) in the
> ImpersonateSecurityContext function? Or is there some other way to do
> this? I assume I need to specify the GSS_C_DELEG_FLAG in the clients
> gss_init_sec_context call, is there anything else that must be done?
> 
> Thanks
> Mattias
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> 
> 

-- 

  Douglas E. Engert  <DEEngert at anl.gov>
  Argonne National Laboratory
  9700 South Cass Avenue
  Argonne, Illinois  60439
  (630) 252-5444


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