@node Setting up a realm, Things in search for a better place, Building and Installing, Top
@chapter Setting up a realm

A
@cindex realm
realm is an administrative domain.  The name of a Kerberos realm is
usually the Internet domain name in uppercase.  Call your realm the same
as your Internet domain name if you do not have strong reasons for not
doing so.  It will make life easier for you and everyone else.

@section Configuration file

To setup a realm you will first have to create a configuration file:
@file{/etc/krb5.conf}. The @file{krb5.conf} file can contain many
configuration options, some of which are described here.

There is a sample @file{krb5.conf} supplied with the distribution.

The configuration file is a hierarchical structure consisting of
sections, each containing a list of bindings (either variable
assignments or subsections). A section starts with
@samp{[section-name]}.  A binding consists of a left hand side, an equal
(@samp{=}) and a right hand side (the left hand side tag must be
separated from the equal with some whitespace.) Subsections has a
@samp{@{} as the first non-whitespace character after the equal. All
other bindings are treated as variable assignments. The value of a
variable extends to the end of the line.

@example
[section1]
        a-subsection = @{
                var = value1
                other-var = value with @{@}
                sub-sub-section = @{ 
                        var = 123
                @}
        @}
        var = some other value
[section2]
        var = yet another value
@end example

In this manual, names of sections and bindings will be given as strings
separated by slashes (@samp{/}). The @samp{other-var} variable will thus
be @samp{section1/a-subsection/other-var}.

For in-depth information about the contents of the config file, refer to
the @file{krb5.conf} manual page. Some of the more important sections
are briefly described here.

The @samp{libdefaults} section contains a list of library configuration
parameters, such as the default realm and the timeout for kdc
responses. The @samp{realms} section contains information about specific
realms, such as where they hide their KDC. This section serves the same
purpose as the Kerberos 4 @file{krb.conf} file, but can contain more
information. Finally the @samp{domain_realm} section contains a list of
mappings from domains to realms, equivalent to the Kerberos 4
@file{krb.realms} file.

To continue with the realm setup, you will have to create a config file,
with contents similar to the following.

@example
[libdefaults]
        default_realm = MY.REALM
[realms]
        MY.REALM = @{
                kdc = my.kdc
        @}
[domain_realm]
        .my.domain = MY.REALM

@end example

If you use a realm name equal to your domain name, you can omit the
@samp{libdefaults}, and @samp{domain_realm}, sections. If you have a
SRV-record for your realm, or your kerberos server has CNAME called
@samp{kerberos.my.realm}, you can omit the @samp{realms} section too.

@section Creating the database

The database library will look for the database in @file{/var/heimdal},
so you should probably create that directory.

The keys of all the principals are stored in the database.  If you
choose to, these can be encrypted with a master key.  You do not have to
remember this key (or password), but just to enter it once and it will
be stored in a file (@file{/var/heimdal/m-key}).  If you want to have a
master key, run @samp{kstash} to create this master key:

@example
# kstash
Master key: 
Verifying password - Master key: 
@end example

To initialise the database use the @code{kadmin} program, with the
@samp{-l} option (to enable local database mode). First issue a
@kbd{init MY.REALM} command. This will create the database and insert
default principals for that realm. You can have more than one realm in
one database, so @samp{init} does not destroy any old database.

Before creating the database, @samp{init} will ask you some questions
about max ticket lifetimes.

After creating the database you should probably add yourself to it. You
do this with the @samp{add} command. It takes as argument the name of a
principal. The principal should contain a realm, so if you haven't setup
a default realm, you will need to explicitly include the realm.

@example
# kadmin -l
kadmin> init MY.REALM
Realm max ticket life [unlimited]:
Realm max renewable ticket life [unlimited]:
kadmin> add me  
Max ticket life [unlimited]:
Max renewable life [unlimited]:
Attributes []:
Password: 
Verifying password - Password: 
@end example

Now start the KDC and try getting a ticket.

@example
# kdc &
# kinit me
me@@MY.REALMS's Password:
# klist
Credentials cache: /tmp/krb5cc_0
        Principal: me@@MY.REALM

  Issued           Expires          Principal
Aug 25 07:25:55  Aug 25 17:25:55  krbtgt/MY.REALM@@MY.REALM
@end example

If you are curious you can use the @samp{dump} command to list all the
entries in the database.  It should look something similar to the
following example (note that the entries here are truncated for
typographical reasons):

@smallexample
kadmin> dump
me@@MY.REALM 1:0:1:0b01d3cb7c293b57:-:0:7:8aec316b9d1629e3baf8 ...
kadmin/admin@@MY.REALM 1:0:1:e5c8a2675b37a443:-:0:7:cb913ebf85 ...
krbtgt/MY.REALM@@MY.REALM 1:0:1:52b53b61c875ce16:-:0:7:c8943be ...
kadmin/changepw@@MY.REALM 1:0:1:f48c8af2b340e9fb:-:0:7:e3e6088 ...
@end smallexample

@section keytabs

To extract a service ticket from the database and put it in a keytab you
need to first create the principal in the database with @samp{ank}
(using the @kbd{--random} flag to get a random password) and then
extract it with @samp{ext_keytab}.

@example
kadmin> add --random host/my.host.name
Max ticket life [unlimited]:
Max renewable life [unlimited]:
Attributes []:
kadmin> ext host/my.host.name
# ktutil list
Version  Type             Principal
     1   des-cbc-md5      host/my.host.name@@MY.REALM
     1   des-cbc-md4      host/my.host.name@@MY.REALM
     1   des-cbc-crc      host/my.host.name@@MY.REALM
     1   des3-cbc-sha1    host/my.host.name@@MY.REALM
@end example

@section Remote administration

The administration server, @samp{kadmind}, is started by @samp{inetd}
and you should add a line similar to the one below to your
@file{/etc/inetd.conf}.

@example
kerberos-adm stream     tcp     nowait  root /usr/heimdal/libexec/kadmind kadmind
@end example

You might need to add @samp{kerberos-adm} to your @file{/etc/services}
as 749/tcp.

Access to the admin server is controlled by an acl-file, (default
@file{/var/heimdal/kadmind.acl}.) The lines in the access file, has the
following syntax:
@smallexample
principal       [priv1,priv2,...]
@end smallexample

The privileges you can assign to a principal are: @samp{add},
@samp{change-password} (or @samp{cpw} for short), @samp{delete},
@samp{get}, @samp{list}, and @samp{modify}, or the special privilege
@samp{all}. All of these roughly corresponds to the different commands
in @samp{kadmin}.

@section Password changing

To allow users to change their passwords, you should run @samp{kpasswdd}.
It is not run from @samp{inetd}.

You might need to add @samp{kpasswd} to your @file{/etc/services} as
464/udp.

@subsection Password quality assurance

It is important that users have good passwords, both to make it harder
to guess them and to avoid off-line attacks (pre-authentication provides
some defense against off-line attacks).  To ensure that the users choose
good passwords, you can enable password quality controls in
@samp{kpasswdd}.  The controls themselves are done in a shared library
that is used by @samp{kpasswdd}.  To configure in these controls, add
lines similar to the following to your @file{/etc/krb5.conf}:

@example
[password_quality]
        check_library = @var{library}
        check_function = @var{function}
@end example

The function @var{function} in the shared library @var{library} will be
called for proposed new passwords.  The function should be declared as:

@example
const char *
function(krb5_context context, krb5_principal principal, krb5_data *pwd);
@end example

The function should verify that @var{pwd} is a good password for
@var{principal} and if so return @code{NULL}.  If it is deemed to be of
low quality, it should return a string explaining why that password
should not be used.

Code for a password quality checking function that uses the cracklib
library can be found in @file{kpasswd/sample_password_check.c} in the
source code distribution.  It requires the cracklib library built with
the patch available at
@url{ftp://ftp.pdc.kth.se/pub/krb/src/cracklib.patch}.

If no password quality checking function is configured, it is only
verified that it is at least six characters of length.

@section Testing clients and servers

Now you should be able to run all the clients and servers.  Refer to the
appropriate man pages for information on how to use them.