kinit(8krb)kinit(8krb)Namekinit - Kerberos login utility
Syntax
/usr/bin/kinit [ -irv ]
Description
You use the command to log into the Kerberos authentication and autho‐
rization system. You also use the command when your original tickets
have expired. When you use the command without options, the utility
prompts for a username and a Kerberos password and attempts to authen‐
ticate to the local Kerberos server.
If Kerberos authenticates you correctly, 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
Make sure you use the command to destroy any active tickets before end‐
ing your login session. You may want to put the command in a file so
that all tickets are destroyed automatically when you log out. Only
registered Kerberos users can use the Kerberos system.
Options-i Causes to prompt you for a Kerberos instance.
-r Causes to prompt you for a Kerberos realm. This option lets you
authenticate yourself with a remote Kerberos server.
-v Initiates verbose mode. This causes 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, 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 running on machine X can obtain its
ticket-granting ticket, you can run input the principal name, the
instance, X, and the password of If succeeds, then Kerberos is cor‐
rectly installed on machine X.
The option has not been fully implemented.
Files
See Also
kdestroy(8krb), klist(8krb)kinit(8krb)