# MIT Kerberos Documentation

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# KDC preauthentication interface (kdcpreauth)

The kdcpreauth interface allows the addition of KDC support for preauthentication mechanisms beyond those included in the core MIT krb5 code base. For a detailed description of the kdcpreauth interface, see the header file `<krb5/kdcpreauth_plugin.h>` (or `<krb5/preauth_plugin.h>` before release 1.12).

A kdcpreauth module is generally responsible for:

- Supplying a list of preauth type numbers used by the module in the pa_type_list field of the vtable structure.

- Indicating what kind of preauthentication mechanism it implements, with the flags method. If the mechanism computes a new reply key, it must specify the `PA_REPLACES_KEY` flag. If the mechanism is generally only used with hardware tokens, the `PA_HARDWARE` flag allows the mechanism to work with principals which have the requires_hwauth flag set.

- Producing a padata value to be sent with a preauth_required error, with the edata method.

- Examining a padata value sent by a client and verifying that it proves knowledge of the appropriate client credential information. This is done with the verify method.

- Producing a padata response value for the client, and possibly computing a reply key. This is done with the return_padata method.

A module can create and destroy per-KDC state objects by implementing the init and fini methods. Per-KDC state objects have the type krb5_kdcpreauth_moddata, which is an abstract pointer types. A module should typically cast this to an internal type for the state object.

A module can create a per-request state object by returning one in the verify method, receiving it in the return_padata method, and destroying it in the free_modreq method. Note that these state objects only apply to the processing of a single AS request packet, not to an entire authentication exchange (since an authentication exchange may remain unfinished by the client or may involve multiple different KDC hosts). Per-request state objects have the type krb5_kdcpreauth_modreq, which is an abstract pointer type.

The edata, verify, and return_padata methods have access to a callback function and handle (called a “rock”) which can be used to get additional information about the current request, including the maximum allowable clock skew, the client’s long-term keys, the DER-encoded request body, the FAST armor key, string attributes on the client’s database entry, and the client’s database entry itself. The verify method can assert one or more authentication indicators to be included in the issued ticket using the `add_auth_indicator` callback (new in release 1.14).

A module can generate state information to be included with the next client request using the `set_cookie` callback (new in release 1.14). On the next request, the module can read this state information using the `get_cookie` callback. Cookie information is encrypted, timestamped, and transmitted to the client in a `PA-FX-COOKIE` pa-data item. Older clients may not support cookies and therefore may not transmit the cookie in the next request; in this case, `get_cookie` will not yield the saved information.

If a module implements a mechanism which requires multiple round trips, its verify method can respond with the code `KRB5KDC_ERR_MORE_PREAUTH_DATA_REQUIRED` and a list of pa-data in the e_data parameter to be processed by the client.

The edata and verify methods can be implemented asynchronously. Because of this, they do not return values directly to the caller, but must instead invoke responder functions with their results. A synchronous implementation can invoke the responder function immediately. An asynchronous implementation can use the callback to get an event context for use with the libverto API.