kinit - Obtain and cache Kerberos
ticket-granting ticket
kinit is used to obtain and cache Kerberos ticket-granting
tickets. This tool is similar in functionality to the kinit
tool that are commonly found in other Kerberos implementations,
such as SEAM and MIT Reference implementations.
The user must be registered as a principal with the Key
Distribution Center (KDC) prior to running kinit.
By default, on the Windows platform a cache file named
<USER_HOME>\krb5cc_<USER_NAME> will be
generated. <uid> is the user identification
number of the user logged into the system. By default, for all
Unix platforms a cache file
named/tmp/krb5cc_<uid> is generated.
<USER_HOME> is obtained from the
java.lang.System property user.home.
<USER_NAME> is obtained from
java.lang.System property user.name.
If <USER_HOME> is null, the cache file would
be stored in the current directory that the program is running
from. <USER_NAME> is the operating system's
login username. This username could be different than the
user's principal name. For example on Windows NT, it could be
c:\winnt\profiles\duke\krb5cc_duke, in which
duke is the <USER_NAME> and
c:\winnt\profiles\duke is the
<USER_HOME>.
By default, the keytab name is retrieved from the Kerberos
configuration file. If the keytab name is not specifed in the
Kerberos configuration file, the name is assumed to be
<USER_HOME>\krb5.keytab
If you do not specify the password using the
password option on the command line, kinit will
prompt you for the password.
Note: password is provided only for
testing purposes. Do not place your password in a script or
provide your password on the command line. Doing so will
compromise your password.
The keytab name (i.e,
d:\winnt\profiles\duke\krb5.keytab).
<principal>
The principal name (i.e.,
duke@java.sun.com).
<password>
The principal's Kerberos password.
(DO NOT SPECIFY ON COMMAND LINE OR IN A SCRIPT.)
-help
Displays instructions.
EXAMPLES
Requesting credentials valid for authentication from the
current client host, for the default services, storing the
credentials cache in the default location
(c:\winnt\profiles\duke\krb5cc_duke):
kinit duke@JAVA.SUN.COM
Requesting proxiable credentials for a different principal
and storing these credentials in a specified file cache:
The password flag is for testing purposes only.
Do not specify your password on the command line. Doing so is a
security hole since an attacker could discover your password
while running the Unix ps command, for
example.