kinit(8krb)
Name
kinit − Kerberos login utility
Syntax
/usr/bin/kinit [ −irv ]
Description
You use the kinit command to log into the Kerberos authentication and authorization system. You also use the kinit command when your original tickets have expired. When you use the kinit command without options, the utility prompts for a username and a Kerberos password and attempts to authenticate to the local Kerberos server.
If Kerberos authenticates you correctly, kinit retrieves your initial ticket and puts it in the ticket file specified by the KRBTKFILE environment variable. If you have not defined this variable, the ticket is stored in the file /var/dss/kerberos/tkt/tkt[uid].
Make sure you use the kdestroy(8krb) command to destroy any active tickets before ending your login session. You may want to put the kdestroy command in a .logout file so that all tickets are destroyed automatically when you log out. Only registered Kerberos users can use the Kerberos system.
Options
−i Causes kinit to prompt you for a Kerberos instance.
−r Causes kinit to prompt you for a Kerberos realm. This option lets you authenticate yourself with a remote Kerberos server.
−v Initiates verbose mode. This causes kinit to print the name of the ticket file used and a status message indicating the success or failure of your login attempt.
Restrictions
Although user-level authentication is not supported, kinit is useful for testing the installation of Kerberos functionality, by determining if a newly installed principal can obtain a ticket-granting ticket. For example, to determine if the named running on machine X can obtain its ticket-granting ticket, you can run kinit, input the principal name, named, the instance, X, and the password of named. If kinit succeeds, then Kerberos is correctly installed on machine X.
The -r option has not been fully implemented.
Files
/var/dss/kerberos/tkt/tkt[uid]