Q287537: Using Basic Authentication to Generate Kerberos Tokens

Article: Q287537
Product(s): Internet Information Server
Version(s): 5.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 18-MAY-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Internet Information Services version 5.0 
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SUMMARY
=======

When you use Basic authentication to connect to a Web site that is hosted by
Internet Information Services (IIS), you can take advantage of the delegation
features of Kerberos to authenticate on multiple back-end servers, such as a
Microsoft SQL Server that is called from Active Server Pages (ASP) running on
IIS. To generate a Kerberos token, IIS must be a member of a Windows 2000 domain
and have access to that domain's active directory.

MORE INFORMATION
================

When IIS authenticates users it does so by calling the LsaLogonUser function,
which in turn calls an authentication package
(MICROSOFT_AUTHENTICATION_PACKAGE_V1_0 for Basic authentication). When Basic
authentication occurs, the following event is written to the security log IIS
5.0 server, assuming the Audit Logon Events policy is enabled:

  Event Type:	Success Audit
  Event Source:	Security
  Event Category:	Logon/Logoff 
  Event ID:	528
  Date:		1/5/2001
  Time:		6:11:04 PM
  User:		Win2kDomain\rvittal
  Computer:	IIS5server
  Description:
  Successful Logon:
   	User Name:       	rvittal
   	Domain:		Win2kDomain
   	Logon ID:		(0x0,0x148D0AC)
   	Logon Type:	             2
   	Logon Process:	IIS     
   	Authentication Package:	MICROSOFT_AUTHENTICATION_PACKAGE_V1_0
   	Workstation Name:	IIS5server<BR/>

After a user has logged into IIS with Basic authentication, IIS has that user's
credentials (username:password), and can use those credentials to generate a
token that can be used to impersonate the user on other computers. When a user
requests a Web page that references resources on another Windows 2000 server,
the IIS server generates a Kerberos security token and an event similar to the
following is written in the security log on the remote server:

  Event Type:	Success Audit
  Event Source:	Security
  Event Category:	Logon/Logoff 
  Event ID:	540
  Date:		1/5/2001
  Time:		1:16:06 PM
  User:		Win2kDomain\rvittal
  Computer:	SQLbox
  Description:
  Successful Network Logon:
   	User Name:	             rvittal
   	Domain:		Win2kDomain
   	Logon ID:		(0x0,0x13A667F)
   	Logon Type:	             3
   	Logon Process:	             Kerberos
   	Authentication Package: Kerberos
   	Workstation Name:	

Note that using Kerberos is not limited to Basic authentication. By default, if a
Windows 2000 client attaches to an IIS5 server that is configured with
Integrated authentication, Kerberos authentication is used.

REFERENCES
==========

This article is based on the information provided on page 109 of the following
book:

Howard, Michael, Richard Waymire, and Marc Levy. Designing Secure Web-Based
Applications for Microsoft<AE> Windows 2000 (Redmond: Microsoft Press, July 2000),
p. 109.

For additional information on authentication methods in IIS, click the article
numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q264921 INFO: How IIS Authenticates Browser Clients

  Q229694 How to Use the IIS Security 'What If' Tool

For more information on Kerberos, see the following articles in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:

  Q217098 Basic Overview of Kerberos User Authentication Protocol in Windows
  2000

  Q266080 Answers to Frequently Asked Kerberos Questions

  Q231789 Local Logon Process for Windows 2000

Additional query words: iis 5

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbiisSearch kbiis500
Version           : :5.0
Issue type        : kbinfo

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