Exercise
8: Using the Java Generic Security Services (GSS) API with SPNEGO
Goal
of this exercise:
Currently the only security mechansim available with Java GSS is "Kerberos". The goal of this exercise is to learn how to use other Java GSS mechanisms, such as SPNEGO, to secure the association. This feature is available from Java SE
6 onwards.
What is SPNEGO?
Java GSS is a framework that can support multiple security mechanisms;
a way to negotiate a security mechanism underneath GSS-API is needed.
This is available via SPNEGO.
SPNEGO is the Simple
and Protected
GSS-API Negotiation Mechanism, standardized at IETF in
RFC 4178.
It's a
pseudo-security mechanism used to negotiate an underlying security
mechanism. It provides the flexibility for client and server to
securely negotiate a common GSS security mechanism.
Microsoft makes heavy use of SPNEGO. SPNEGO can be used to
inter-operate
with Microsoft Server over
HTTP, to support HTTP-based Cross-Platform authentication via the
Negotiate Protocol.
What do I need do to
use SPNEGO in Java GSS?
Currently when using Java GSS with Kerberos, we specify the
Kerberos OID to use Kerberos.
Oid krb5Oid = new Oid("1.2.840.113554.1.2.2");
In order to use
SPNEGO, you
only need to specify the SPNEGO OID as follows:-
Oid spnegoOid = new Oid("1.3.6.1.5.5.2");
And henceforth use the SPNEGO OID when creating a
GSSCredential, GSSContext, etc.
Run the client application. GssClient takes two
parameters: the service name and the name of the server that the
service
is running on. For example, if the service is host
running on the machine j1hol-001, you would
enter the following. When prompted for the password, enter changeit.
Received message: Hello There! Thu May 06 12:11:15
PDT 2005
Summary:
In this exercise, you learned how to
write a client-server application that uses the Java GSS API with
SPNEGO to negotiate an underlying security mechanism, such as Kerberos,
and communicate securely using Kerberos as the underlying
authentication system.
Note: Microsoft
has implemented certain variations of the SPNEGO protocol, hence to
inter-operate with Microsoft, we have added an MS mode via a new system
property "sun.security.spnego.msinterop". This property is enabled to
"true"
by default. To disable it, you need to explicitly set this property to
"false". To enable SPNEGO debugging, you can set the system
property "sun.security.spnego.debug=true".