$Source: /mit/kerberos/src/man/RCS/kinit.1,v $
$Author: jtkohl $
$Header: kinit.1,v 4.6 89/01/23 11:39:11 jtkohl Exp $
Copyright 1989 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For copying and distribution information,
please see the file <mit-copyright.h>.

kinit - Kerberos login utility kinit [ -irvl ] The kinit command is used to login to the Kerberos authentication and authorization system. Note that only registered Kerberos users can use the Kerberos system. For information about registering as a Kerberos user, see the kerberos(1) manual page.

If you system is configured so that login (1) automatically provides your initial tickets, you do not have to use kinit. You will need to use kinit only in those situations in which your original tickets have expired. (Tickets expire in about a day.)

When you use kinit without options, the utility prompts for your Kerberos principal name and password, and tries to authenticate your login with the local realm's Kerberos server.

If Kerberos authenticates the login attempt, kinit retrieves your initial ticket and puts it in the ticket file specified by your KRBTKFILE environment variable. If this variable is undefined, your ticket will be stored in the /tmp directory, in the file tktuid , where uid specifies your user identification number.

Make sure you use the kdestroy command to destroy any active tickets before you end your login session. You may want to put the kdestroy command in your \.logout file so that your tickets will be destroyed automatically when you logout.

The options to kinit are as follows:

7 -i kinit prompts you for a Kerberos instance.

-r kinit prompts you for a Kerberos realm. This option lets you authenticate yourself with a remote Kerberos server.

-v Verbose mode. kinit prints the location of your tickets, and a status message indicating the success or failure of your login attempt.

-l kinit prompts you for a ticket lifetime in minutes. Due to protocol restrictions in Kerberos Version 4, this value must be between 5 and 1275 minutes.

kerberos(1), kdestroy(1), klist(1)

The -r option has not been fully implemented. Steve Miller, MIT Project Athena/Digital Equipment Corporation

Clifford Neuman, MIT Project Athena