Krb5 API vs. GSSAPI

[Fredrik Tolf]

Hi!

I've been writing a couple of programs that use Kerberos for
authentication. I've been using the Krb5 native API, since the example
programs that came with the MIT Krb5 source distribution that were using
the native API seemed much simpler than those that used GSSAPI.

However, looking around at other programs, it seems that most (all?) are
using GSSAPI. Thus, I'm wondering what the advantages of using GSSAPI
are, and when you should use GSSAPI and when you should use the native
API. I know that GSSAPI is supposed to be able to support other
mechanism apart from Kerberos, but from what I know, this hasn't
happened so far, so that doesn't really seem to be a very great
advantage of using GSSAPI.

Can someone enlighten me on this issue, please?

Fredrik Tolf