5 Network Working Group M. Horowitz
6 <draft-ietf-cat-kerb-chg-password-02.txt> Stonecast, Inc.
7 Internet-Draft August, 1998
9 Kerberos Change Password Protocol
13 This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working
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34 The Kerberos V5 protocol [RFC1510] does not describe any mechanism
35 for users to change their own passwords. In order to promote
36 interoperability between workstations, personal computers, terminal
37 servers, routers, and KDC's from multiple vendors, a common password
38 changing protocol is required.
44 When a user wishes to change his own password, or is required to by
45 local policy, a simple request of a password changing service is
46 necessary. This service must be implemented on at least one host for
47 each Kerberos realm, probably on one of the kdc's for that realm.
48 The service must accept requests on UDP port 464 (kpasswd), and may
49 accept requests on TCP port 464 as well.
51 The protocol itself consists of a single request message followed by
52 a single reply message. For UDP transport, each message must be
53 fully contained in a single UDP packet.
64 Internet Draft Kerberos Change Password Protocol August, 1998
70 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
71 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
72 | message length | protocol version number |
73 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
74 | AP_REQ length | AP-REQ data /
75 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
77 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
79 message length (16 bits)
80 Contains the length of the message, including this field, in bytes
82 protocol version number (16 bits)
83 Contains the hex constant 0x0001 (big-endian integer)
84 AP-REQ length (16 bits)
85 length (big-endian integer) of AP-REQ data, in bytes.
86 AP-REQ data, as described in RFC1510 (variable length)
87 This AP-REQ must be for the service principal
88 kadmin/changepw@REALM, where REALM is the REALM of the user who
89 wishes to change his password. The Ticket in the AP-REQ must be
90 derived from an AS request (thus having the INITIAL flag set), and
91 must include a subkey in the Authenticator.
92 KRB-PRIV message, as described in RFC1510 (variable length)
93 This KRB-PRIV message must be generated using the subkey in the
94 Authenticator in the AP-REQ data. The user-data component of the
95 message must consist of the user's new password.
97 The server must verify the AP-REQ message, decrypt the new password,
98 perform any local policy checks (such as password quality, history,
99 authorization, etc.) required, then set the password to the new value
102 The principal whose password is to be changed is the principal which
103 authenticated to the password changing service. This protocol does
104 not address administrators who want to change passwords of principal
111 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
112 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
113 | message length | protocol version number |
114 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
115 | AP_REP length | AP-REP data /
116 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
117 / KRB-PRIV or KRB-ERROR message /
118 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
120 message length (16 bits)
126 Internet Draft Kerberos Change Password Protocol August, 1998
129 Contains the length of the message, including this field, in bytes
130 (big-endian integer),
131 protocol version number (16 bits)
132 Contains the hex constant 0x0001 (big-endian integer)
133 AP-REP length (16 bits)
134 length of AP-REP data, in bytes. If the the length is zero, then
135 the last field will contain a KRB-ERROR message instead of a KRB-
137 AP-REP data, as described in RFC1510 (variable length)
138 The AP-REP corresponding to the AP-REQ in the request packet.
139 KRB-PRIV or KRB-ERROR message, as described in RFC1510 (variable
141 If the AP-REP length is zero, then this field contains a KRB-ERROR
142 message. Otherwise, it contains a KRB-PRIV message. This KRB-
143 PRIV message must be generated using the subkey in the
144 Authenticator in the AP-REQ data.
146 The user-data component of the KRB-PRIV message, or e-data
147 component of the KRB-ERROR message, must consist of the following
151 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
152 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
153 | result code | result string /
154 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
156 result code (16 bits)
157 The result code must have one of the following values (big-
159 0x0000 if the request succeeds. (This value is not permitted
160 in a KRB-ERROR message.)
161 0x0001 if the request fails due to being malformed
162 0x0002 if the request fails due to a "hard" error processing
163 the request (for example, there is a resource or other
164 problem causing the request to fail)
165 0x0003 if the request fails due to an error in authentication
167 0x0004 if the request fails due to a "soft" error processing
168 the request (for example, some policy or other similar
169 consideration is causing the request to be rejected).
170 0xFFFF if the request fails for some other reason.
171 Although only a few non-zero result codes are specified here,
172 the client should accept any non-zero result code as indicating
174 result string (variable length)
175 This field should contain information which the server thinks
176 might be useful to the user, such as feedback about policy
177 failures. The string must be encoded in UTF-8. It may be
178 omitted if the server does not wish to include it. If it is
179 present, the client should display the string to the user.
180 This field is analogous to the string which follows the numeric
181 code in SMTP, FTP, and similar protocols.
188 Internet Draft Kerberos Change Password Protocol August, 1998
191 Dropped and Modified Messages
193 An attacker (or simply a lossy network) could cause either the
194 request or reply to be dropped, or modified by substituting a KRB-
195 ERROR message in the reply.
197 If a request is dropped, no modification of the password/key database
198 will take place. If a reply is dropped, the server will (assuming a
199 valid request) make the password change. However, the client cannot
200 distinguish between these two cases.
202 In this situation, the client should construct a new authenticator,
203 re-encrypt the request, and retransmit. If the original request was
204 lost, the server will treat this as a valid request, and the password
205 will be changed normally. If the reply was lost, then the server
206 should take care to notice that the request was a duplicate of the
207 prior request, because the "new" password is the current password,
208 and the password change time is within some implementation-defined
209 replay time window. The server should then return a success reply
210 (an AP-REP message with result code == 0x0000) without actually
211 changing the password or any other information (such as modification
214 If a success reply was replaced with an error reply, then the
215 application performing the request would return an error to the user.
216 In this state, the user's password has been changed, but the user
217 believes that it has not. If the user attempts to change the
218 password again, this will probably fail, because the user cannot
219 successfully provide the old password to get an INITIAL ticket to
220 make the request. This situation requires administrative
221 intervention as if a password was lost. This situation is,
222 unfortunately, impossible to prevent.
225 Security Considerations
227 This document deals with changing passwords for Kerberos. Because
228 Kerberos is used for authentication and key distribution, it is
229 important that this protocol use the highest level of security
230 services available to a particular installation. Mutual
231 authentication is performed, so that the server knows the request is
232 valid, and the client knows that the request has been received and
233 processed by the server.
235 There are also security issues relating to dropped or modified
236 messages which are addressed explicitly.
241 [RFC1510] Kohl, J. and Neuman, C., "The Kerberos Network
242 Authentication Service (V5)", RFC 1510, September 1993.
250 Internet Draft Kerberos Change Password Protocol August, 1998
260 Phone: +1 978 456 9103
261 Email: marc@stonecast.net