RFC 1508 (rfc1508) - Page 2 of 49
Generic Security Service Application Program Interface
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1508 Generic Security Interface September 1993 2. Interface Descriptions ..................................... 15 2.1. Credential management calls ............................. 17 2.1.1. GSS_Acquire_cred call ................................. 17 2.1.2. GSS_Release_cred call ................................. 19 2.1.3. GSS_Inquire_cred call ................................. 20 2.2. Context-level calls ..................................... 21 2.2.1. GSS_Init_sec_context call ............................. 21 2.2.2. GSS_Accept_sec_context call ........................... 26 2.2.3. GSS_Delete_sec_context call ........................... 29 2.2.4. GSS_Process_context_token call ........................ 30 2.2.5. GSS_Context_time call ................................. 31 2.3. Per-message calls ....................................... 32 2.3.1. GSS_Sign call ......................................... 32 2.3.2. GSS_Verify call ....................................... 33 2.3.3. GSS_Seal call ......................................... 35 2.3.4. GSS_Unseal call ....................................... 36 2.4. Support calls ........................................... 37 2.4.1. GSS_Display_status call ............................... 37 2.4.2. GSS_Indicate_mechs call ............................... 38 2.4.3. GSS_Compare_name call ................................. 38 2.4.4. GSS_Display_name call ................................. 39 2.4.5. GSS_Import_name call .................................. 40 2.4.6. GSS_Release_name call ................................. 41 2.4.7. GSS_Release_buffer call ............................... 41 2.4.8. GSS_Release_oid_set call .............................. 42 3. Mechanism-Specific Example Scenarios ....................... 42 3.1. Kerberos V5, single-TGT ................................. 43 3.2. Kerberos V5, double-TGT ................................. 43 3.3. X.509 Authentication Framework .......................... 44 4. Related Activities ......................................... 45 5. Acknowledgments ............................................ 46 6. Security Considerations .................................... 46 7. Author's Address ........................................... 46 Appendix A .................................................... 47 Appendix B .................................................... 48 Appendix C .................................................... 49 1. GSS-API Characteristics and Concepts The operational paradigm in which GSS-API operates is as follows. A typical GSS-API caller is itself a communications protocol, calling on GSS-API in order to protect its communications with authentication, integrity, and/or confidentiality security services. A GSS-API caller accepts tokens provided to it by its local GSS-API implementation and transfers the tokens to a peer on a remote system; that peer passes the received tokens to its local GSS-API implementation for processing. The security services available through GSS-API in this fashion are implementable (and have been Linn



