Hello all,,

i just wanted to consult you on which is better for authenticating Linux clients against Active Directory. LDAP or Kerberos agents??

let's discuss that in terms of pros and cons.

After some research and experimenting, I've come to the following:

Kerberos:
========
pros: 1) easy to set up 2) Encrypted authentication by default.
cons: hard-coding KDCs to bind to. This is a problem if all KDCs go down.


LDAP:
====
pros: N/A
cons: 1) requires server SSL certificate installed on clients in order to provide encrypted authentication.


Do you guys agree with this or have comments/advices?

Thanks in advance,

Well you've got a bit of a gap here in that kerberos is ONLY for authentication, whereas LDAP will do both authentication AND user information. If you're going to use as the user infomation repository and access it via LDAP, then you'll have already done the "cons" work anyway. Where else would your users come from? Getting your own SSL certs really isn't exactly tricky either, and more self-reliant. One of the main benefits of kerberos is that it leads to the possibility of generic single sign on, which LDAP doesn't, as it only takes you as far as a generic one-shot credential check. Whilst it's simple to set up it can be confusing debugging KRB5 ticket statuses and such - per login LDAP worked or it didn't.

Thanks Acid,

You did point out something I missed, which Kerberos SSO. That's a pro over LDAP authentication.

Thanks,

Most importantly, choose one system and use it corporation-wide.

These kinds of things are never "either/or decisions," where any sort of "bright-line rule" applies.

kerberos is easy to set up. but it can be a right bugger after that. I'm studying for my RHCA exams, and can't for the life of me work out why kpropd isn't working. DAMN YOU KERBEROS!!!