Summary

[Previous] [Next]

Kerberos authentication is an industry-standard network authentication protocol initially designed at MIT. With Kerberos support, a fast, single logon process gives users the access they need to Windows 2000 Server-based resources, as well as to other environments that support this protocol. The Windows 2000 operating system implementation of the Kerberos protocol is designed for interoperability with other security services based on the MIT Kerberos version 5 reference implementation. Support for Kerberos includes additional benefits such as mutual authentication, in which the client and server must both provide authentication, and delegated authentication, in which the user's identity is passed from server to server. Internet Information Services 5, Internet Explorer 5, COM+, and SQL Server 2000 are Kerberos-aware and will use the protocol where possible to provide all of these benefits.