It was a good run, but after more than 10 years as the authentication tools at Stanford, PC-Leland and MacLeland are finally retiring this month. They began as tools to allow authentication via Kerberos 4 to email and AFS (a distributed networked file system for file sharing) on computers across campus and grew from there to include authentication to additional systems via both Kerberos 4 and Kerberos 5. Since then, the stronger, more secure Kerberos 5 protocol has become the new standard and Kerberos 4 is no longer under development. When Kerberos 5 authentication became available for AFS in 2006, it was the beginning of the end for PC-Leland and MacLeland.
What is Kerberos?
Kerberos began at MIT as part of Project Athena. It is named after the three-headed dog of Greek mythology that guards the gates of Hades. Kerberos is used for authentication and encryption. It lets you log in once and get access across various systems based on your SUNet ID and password. PC-Leland and MacLeland were developed at Stanford to enable Kerberos authentication from desktop systems around campus.
Kerberos Expansion
In the years between its initial development and today, Kerberos authentication has moved beyond the university setting where it was born. Kerberos 5 has been a standard part of Macintosh OS X since version 10.2 and now only needs a little configuration to be ready to use at Stanford. For Windows, open source tools like Kerberos for Windows now serve the same purpose as PC-Leland. Custom-built software like PC-Leland or MacLeland is expensive to support. Minimally customized, standards-based, open source solutions are a better, less costly alternative for the University. Now, working with the open source community, work we do on the Kerberos project, Kerberos for Windows, or AFS benefits not only Stanford, but also users across the country. Stanford continues to be an active participant in Kerberos development.
Kerberos 5 and Stanford Desktop Tools
At the end of April, all systems and servers on campus will no longer use Kerberos 4. On May 15th, the last pieces of the Kerberos 4 infrastructure will be shut down. For the past year and a half, users across campus have been encouraged to adopt Stanford Desktop Tools and Kerberos for Windows or Macintosh Kerberos Configuration as a replacement for PC-Leland or MacLeland. (See The End Is Near: Upgrade to Stanford Desktop Tools in the January 2008 issue of this newsletter.) At this time, 99 percent of campus users have converted. The few remaining users are being contacted to help them move on.
