Kerberos Architecture and Ticket Flow
Trace the full Kerberos flow: AS request, TGT issuance, service ticket, and mutual authentication.
Kerberos Origins
Kerberos was developed at MIT as part of Project Athena in the 1980s to provide secure network authentication for a distributed computing environment. Named after the three-headed dog guarding the underworld, it provides mutual authentication between clients and services using a trusted third party: the Key Distribution Center.
Key Distribution Center Components
The KDC has two logical components: the Authentication Service (AS) and the Ticket Granting Service (TGS). In Microsoft Active Directory, both run on the domain controller. The AS handles initial login and issues Ticket Granting Tickets (TGTs). The TGS issues service tickets for accessing specific services.