Summary of Kerberos

• Kerberos provides an authentication server (AS) that issues “tickets” or “session keys” to clients for various services

  • The O(N2) password management problem is alleviated
  • In addition, by using the TGS, users no longer need to type in passwords all the time

• AS and TGS need to be trusted

  • For large systems, should PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) be used instead?
  • For small systems, do we need Kerberos? SSH may be just fine.