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 your College password (actually a Kerberos password stored in the College Active Directory domain), or your DoC linux (Kerberos) password if you have one. DoC Windows machines currently use their own Windows-specific passwords, but will hopefully accept College passwords by the end of summer 2009.

Kerberos also enables the ability to use ticket-based automatic single sign-on across services that have been extended to support it. Departmental services that support ticket-based authentication include:

• 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 you login to (or unlock a locked session on) a DoC Linux machine, you receive a Kerberos ticket that lasts 8 hours. All the above services should then work without asking you for your password again until your ticket expires after 8 hours, you can give yourself another ticket from the College Kerberos/AD servers via kinit $user@IC.AC.UK.