This page explains how to log in to our servers without having to type in a password.

TableOfContents

Prerequisites

You must have openssh client 4.3 or later. Other versions may work, but we make no guarantees. You will also want the krb5-user package if you are using Debian or Ubuntu. For Mac OS X 10.3 and later no additional software is required for the instructions below to work. For further details, check out ["MemberManual/TransferringFiles/OpenAFS"], and follow just the Kerberos instructions.

Instructions

Once a Kerberos client hsa been installed, you must obtain Kerberos tickets. If your username is "fred", you would do this by typing:

kinit fred@HCOOP.NET

Then type your password when prompted. Note that you must capitalize HCOOP.NET and you must not capitalize your user name. This is important.

Next, make sure you have your tickets. To do this, type

klist

You should see your tickets and their expiration dates.

Last, type

ssh -o 'GSSAPIAuthentication yes' -o 'GSSAPIDelegateCredentials yes' fred@mire.hcoop.net

(GSSAPI is sort of like Kerberos. Don't worry about the difference at this point.)

If that doesn't work, add "-vvv" to the command line and copy and paste the ENTIRE output into an email to hcoop-discuss and we'll tell you what's up.

Automating things

If you do this a lot, you can include the GSSAPIAuthentication and GSSAPIDelegateCredentials options in your ~/.ssh/config file. But you should NOT turn on GSSAPIDelegateCredentials for arbitrary hosts (make sure you only enable it for HCOOP hosts).

Here is an example entry for ~/.ssh/config:

Host mire.hcoop.net
  GSSAPIAuthentication yes
  GSSAPIDelegateCredentials yes
  User fred

This will allow you to type the following, instead of the longer command above.

ssh fred@mire.hcoop.net

If it doesn't work

See the [:MemberManual/ShellAccess/TroubleshootingKerberos:Troubleshooting Kerberos] page if you run into any problems.