[SSSD-users] Kerberos + AD: session encryption

l at avc.su l at avc.su
Fri Aug 28 22:25:21 UTC 2015


Hello.

I've configured domain membership for one linux server, and now I'm 
trying to understand one thing. I can't figure out how SASL-GSSAPI 
encrypts LDAP requests and GC interactions. As long as I understood  
Kerberos, it's a protocol solely for authentication, and SASL-GSSAPI 
gives it ability to encrypt all data transactions between authenticated 
hosts. But this encryption is not mandatory.
I've done several queries via 'id' utility to generate traffic, and 
captured it. All I can see is LDAP traffic to 389/tcp and 3268/tcp, 
which is encrypted. I can decrypt it by loading host's keytab to 
Wireshark.
We've disabled anonymous and insecure binds (without integrity checking 
or SSL/TLS encryption) in AD, and didn't adjust minssf/maxssf parameters 
on Linux. As long as I understood, AD does not require whole session 
encryption, neither does Linux.
All authentication is done in SSSD (authconfig --enablesssd 
--enablesssdauth).

To summarize: I want to understand, why SASL-GSSAPI encrypts whole 
connection and not just auth phase, so I could be sure that one day all 
connections wouldn't appear in plaintext on the network.
If I had more experience in programming, I've could find the answer in 
source code (all hail to opensource) to fullfill my curiosity, but 
unfortunately I can't do that, so I'll appreciate any help/hints/links 
on the topic.

Kind regards.


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