is the master key cached somehow (slave side)?

Benjamin Kaduk kaduk at MIT.EDU
Wed Jul 2 22:23:53 EDT 2014


On Wed, 25 Jun 2014, Giuseppe Mazza wrote:

> Is it the normal behaviour?
> I thought you should have a valid stash file on place to access the
> database on the slave. Maybe not?
> Or there is some kind of caching?
> Do you know how it works?

The master key is ~only used to encrypt the long-term key information 
stored in the database; as such, it is only needed when those keys are to 
be accessed for cryptographic operations.  Merely copying the database 
around does not require the master key.  (Still, such copying should be 
done over an encrypted connection.)

kprop/kpropd is an "ordinary" (in one sense) kerberized service, using the 
host principals of the master and slave KDC machines as the client and 
service principals.  Since those keys are still in the main krb5.keytab on 
both machines when the stash file is moved out of the way, the kpropd 
operation succeeds.  When the stash file is moved back into place, the new 
principal's key and information can be accessed as usual.

-Ben


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