Will the Real get-a-tgt-with-a-password Function Please Stand Up?

[Henry B. Hotz]

This might suddenly become urgent, so apologies for my obsolete  
background for this question, but:

There is a function in the (admittedly obsolete) MIT API document that  
will get a tgt, given a password as input.  Looking at the Heimdal and  
MIT source for the kinit program a couple of years ago it struck me  
that neither one of them used that function.  They each appeared to use  
different, other routines for that function.

What's the "right", implementation-independent way to do that?  Is the  
answer different if you are just checking passwords and don't need to  
keep the tgt?
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The opinions expressed in this message are mine,
not those of Caltech, JPL, NASA, or the US Government.
Henry.B.Hotz at jpl.nasa.gov, or hbhotz at oxy.edu