Kfm newbie questions

[MIT Macintosh Development Team]

At 3:28 PM -0500 3/5/03, Pete Holler wrote:
>I'm attempting to modify NewsWatcher (v2.2.2 for Mac OS 8/9) to
>perform authentication using the GSS API of KfM v4.0.3. The goal
>is to get NewsWatcher to play nice with other Kfm-savvy apps,
>like Eudora and Fetch.
>
>The actual starting point for this project is a previous version
>of NewsWatcher that used the old, v1.x KClient interface. I've
>downloaded and perused the KfM 4.0.3 SDK, but it is somewhat
>lacking in example code/snippets or overview on how the OS 8/9
>Control Panel ties in with the library and applications that
>need to perform authentication.
>
>Apologizing for my ignorance in advance, all I can do is blurt
>out a bunch of random questions and hope that you are able to
>shed some light on one or more of them. To wit:
>
>1) Is there a programmatic interface to the Control panel?
>    - KClient was the conduit used for authentication. Does the
>      Control panel have similar functions?

Hi Pete,

A couple of comments.

First of all, the KClient API has not gone away in KfM 4.0.3, even 
though the KClient control panel has been replaced.  Quite a bit of 
work was done to make sure that existing KClient applications, even 
those that talked to the KClient v1 API, worked with the "new" KfM. 
The way KfM 4.0.x is designed, you will still "play nice" with other 
KfM using applications when you're using the KClient API.

Is your problem that the modified KClient-using Newswatcher doesn't 
seem to work with KfM 4.0.3?  If so, you may just want to work on 
upgrading the KClient code it uses.

You can find links to a KClient Transition Guide and documentation 
for the KClient 3.0 API at:

<http://web.mit.edu/macdev/Development/MITKerberos/MITKerberosLib/KClient/Documentation/index.html>

The new control panel really doesn't have a programmatic interface; 
it is just a GUI for managing your Kerberos tickets.  The Kerberos 
Library contains all the programmatic interfaces, which are detailed 
at:

<http://web.mit.edu/macdev/Development/MITKerberos/MITKerberosLib/Common/Documentation/>

Also, consider that you need to make sure that your news server has 
GSS/Kerberos v5 support before you consider converting Newswatcher 
(the client application) to support GSS API.  If the server doesn't 
support it, adding support to just the client will not work.

Hope this helps,

-- 
Scott McGuire / smcguire at mit.edu
MIT Information Systems Macintosh Developer