Node: How Kerberos Works, Next: Configuration Files, Previous: Introduction, Up: Top

## How Kerberos Works

This section provides a simplified description of a general user's interaction with the Kerberos system. This interaction happens transparently--users don't need to know and probably don't care about what's going on--but Kerberos administrators might find a schematic description of the process useful. This description glosses over a lot of details; for more information, see Kerberos: An Authentication Service for Open Network Systems, a paper presented at Winter USENIX 1988, in Dallas, Texas. This paper can be retreived by FTP from `athena-dist.mit.edu`, in the location: `/pub/ATHENA/kerberos/doc/usenix.PS`.