> Per kdc.conf(5), the kdc.conf file doesn't live in /etc; it lives
> somewhere else. (I put it at /var/kerberos/krb5kdc/kdc.conf in
You are right: strace showed that kdc.conf is not searched in /etc:
[root at host ~]# grep -e 'kdc\.' /tmp/strace.log
678 stat("/var/lib/krb5kdc/kdc.conf", 0x7ffcd7919710) = -1 ENOENT
Thank you.