Layering central authentication on the interactive services of an existing homogeneous distributed system
Provision of interactive terminal service in a distributed system requires mechanisms to establish and disestablish a terminal session (i.e., to logon and logoff) as well as to move textual data between the terminal host and remote host. Logon occurs in most distributed systems subsequent to the establishment of a terminal session by means of host specific logon procedures. However, in a distributed system of any size, this approach leads to security and password management problems. When the distributed system is homogeneous, these problems can be rectified through the use of a central authentication service that presents a common logon interface to the user for all distributed system hosts. Normally, central authentication is provided by either initially designing it into a distributed system or supporting it through the modification of existing distributed system and host operating system software. As an alternative strategy, central authentication can be layered onto the existing interactive terminal services of a distributed system. An experiment to assess the feasibility of this approach was carried out. The results demonstrate that layering can be used in certain circumstances to provide central authentication services. The experiment also determined what terminal service features are necessary so that central authentication is easily added to a distributed system. Recommendations are made concerning how to structure terminal services in a distributed system so that central authentication is effectively achieved.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 6168059
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-96080; CONF-871141-1; ON: DE87011544
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Symposium on operating systems principles, Austin, TX, USA, 9 Nov 1987; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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