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Create a Kerberos service principal name and keytab file

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Set up Kerberos as the authentication mechanism for WebSphere Application Server

We can create a Kerberos service principal name and keytab file when using Microsoft Windows, iSeries , Linux, Solaris, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and z/OS operating systems key distribution centers (KDCs). Kerberos prefers servers and services to have a host-based service ID. The format of this ID is <service name>/<fully qualified hostname>. The default service name is WAS. For Kerberos authentication, the service name can be any strings allowed by the KDC. However, for SPNEGO web authentication, the service name must be HTTP. An example of a WAS ID is WAS/myhost.austin.ibm.com.

Each host must have a server ID unique to the host name. All processes on the same node share the same host-based service ID.

A Kerberos administrator creates a Kerberos service principal name (SPN) for each node in the WebSphere cell. For example, for a cell with three nodes (such as server1.austin.ibm.com, server2.austin.ibm.com and server3.austin.ibm.com), the Kerberos administrator must create the following Kerberos service principals: WAS/server1.austin.ibm.com, WAS/server2.austin.ibm.com, and WAS/server3.austin.ibm.com.

The Kerberos keytab filekrb5.keytab contains all of the SPNs for the node and must be protected. This file can be placed in the config/cells/<cell_name> directory.

Read the Creating a Kerberos principal and keytab article for more information.


What to do next

Create a Kerberos configuration file


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  • Create a Kerberos service principal name and keytab file