Authentication Services

We are aiming towards a single College password for each user, that allows you to access all standard university and Departmental services, such as email, remote login and web services. Currently, all CSG-maintained Linux systems in the Department will accept EITHER:

• your College password (actually a Kerberos password stored in the College Active Directory domain), OR

• (existing DoC users) your previous DoC Kerberos password. Up to 2007, people joining DoC were setup with a DoC kerberos password.

DoC Windows machines currently use their own Windows-specific passwords, but will hopefully accept College passwords by Xmas 2009.

Kerberos also enables the ability to use ticket-based automatic single sign-on across services that have been extended to support it. When you login to (or unlock a locked session on) a DoC Linux machine, you receive a Kerberos ticket that lasts 8 hours. All the following services will try your current ticket rather than asking you for your password again until your ticket expires after 8 hours:

• Remote login via Secure Shell (SSH);
• Departmental web pages accessed over HTTPS from Kerberos-aware browsers like Firefox;
• Network filesystem access via Windows Networking (SMB/CIFS) - but using your DoC Windows AD/Kerberos ticket.

When your ticket has expired, you can give yourself another ticket from the College Kerberos/AD servers via

kinit xyz09@IC.AC.UK

[if your username is xyz09].

Note that "IC.AC.UK" is in upper case, and is not an email address, it's a Kerberos realm.