Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
3.3.3. Generation of KRB_TGS_REP message

Up: Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
Up: Requests For Comments
Up: RFC 1510
Up: 3. Message Exchanges
Up: 3.3. The Ticket-Granting Service (TGS) Exchange
Prev: 3.3.2. Receipt of KRB_TGS_REQ message
Next: 3.3.3.1. Encoding the transited field

3.3.3. Generation of KRB_TGS_REP message

3.3.3. Generation of KRB_TGS_REP message

The KRB_TGS_REP message shares its format with the KRB_AS_REP (KRB_KDC_REP), but with its type field set to KRB_TGS_REP. The detailed specification is in section 5.4.2.

The response will include a ticket for the requested server. The Kerberos database is queried to retrieve the record for the requested server (including the key with which the ticket will be encrypted). If the request is for a ticket granting ticket for a remote realm, and if no key is shared with the requested realm, then the Kerberos server will select the realm "closest" to the requested realm with which it does share a key, and use that realm instead. This is the only case where the response from the KDC will be for a different server than that requested by the client.

By default, the address field, the client's name and realm, the list of transited realms, the time of initial authentication, the expiration time, and the authorization data of the newly-issued ticket will be copied from the ticket-granting ticket (TGT) or renewable ticket. If the transited field needs to be updated, but the transited type is not supported, the KDC_ERR_TRTYPE_NOSUPP error is returned.

If the request specifies an endtime, then the endtime of the new ticket is set to the minimum of (a) that request, (b) the endtime from the TGT, and (c) the starttime of the TGT plus the minimum of the maximum life for the application server and the maximum life for the local realm (the maximum life for the requesting principal was already applied when the TGT was issued). If the new ticket is to be a renewal, then the endtime above is replaced by the minimum of (a) the value of the renew_till field of the ticket and (b) the starttime for the new ticket plus the life (endtimestarttime) of the old ticket.

If the FORWARDED option has been requested, then the resulting ticket will contain the addresses specified by the client. This option will only be honored if the FORWARDABLE flag is set in the TGT. The PROXY option is similar; the resulting ticket will contain the addresses specified by the client. It will be honored only if the PROXIABLE flag in the TGT is set. The PROXY option will not be honored on requests for additional ticket-granting tickets.

If the requested start time is absent or indicates a time in the past, then the start time of the ticket is set to the authentication server's current time. If it indicates a time in the future, but the POSTDATED option has not been specified or the MAY-POSTDATE flag is not set in the TGT, then the error KDC_ERR_CANNOT_POSTDATE is returned. Otherwise, if the ticket-granting ticket has the MAYPOSTDATE flag set, then the resulting ticket will be postdated and the requested starttime is checked against the policy of the local realm. If acceptable, the ticket's start time is set as requested, and the INVALID flag is set. The postdated ticket must be validated before use by presenting it to the KDC after the starttime has been reached. However, in no case may the starttime, endtime, or renew- till time of a newly-issued postdated ticket extend beyond the renew-till time of the ticket-granting ticket.

If the ENC-TKT-IN-SKEY option has been specified and an additional ticket has been included in the request, the KDC will decrypt the additional ticket using the key for the server to which the additional ticket was issued and verify that it is a ticket-granting ticket. If the name of the requested server is missing from the request, the name of the client in the additional ticket will be used. Otherwise the name of the requested server will be compared to the name of the client in the additional ticket and if different, the request will be rejected. If the request succeeds, the session key from the additional ticket will be used to encrypt the new ticket that is issued instead of using the key of the server for which the new ticket will be used (This allows easy implementation of user-to- user authentication [6], which uses ticket-granting ticket session keys in lieu of secret server keys in situations where such secret keys could be easily compromised.).

If the name of the server in the ticket that is presented to the KDC as part of the authentication header is not that of the ticket- granting server itself, and the server is registered in the realm of the KDC, If the RENEW option is requested, then the KDC will verify that the RENEWABLE flag is set in the ticket and that the renew_till time is still in the future. If the VALIDATE option is rqeuested, the KDC will check that the starttime has passed and the INVALID flag is set. If the PROXY option is requested, then the KDC will check that the PROXIABLE flag is set in the ticket. If the tests succeed, the KDC will issue the appropriate new ticket.

Whenever a request is made to the ticket-granting server, the presented ticket(s) is(are) checked against a hot-list of tickets which have been canceled. This hot-list might be implemented by storing a range of issue dates for "suspect tickets"; if a presented ticket had an authtime in that range, it would be rejected. In this way, a stolen ticket-granting ticket or renewable ticket cannot be used to gain additional tickets (renewals or otherwise) once the theft has been reported. Any normal ticket obtained before it was reported stolen will still be valid (because they require no interaction with the KDC), but only until their normal expiration time.

The ciphertext part of the response in the KRB_TGS_REP message is encrypted in the sub-session key from the Authenticator, if present, or the session key key from the ticket-granting ticket. It is not encrypted using the client's secret key. Furthermore, the client's key's expiration date and the key version number fields are left out since these values are stored along with the client's database record, and that record is not needed to satisfy a request based on a ticket-granting ticket. See section A.6 for pseudocode.


Next: 3.3.3.1. Encoding the transited field

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
3.3.3. Generation of KRB_TGS_REP message