Certificates
The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) necessary to support the use of certificates in a Windows Server 2003 forest was described in Chapter 2. Certificates can also be used by other operating systems and devices on the network. You will need to check for compatibility. The other operating systems can use browser access to request and install certificates. If certificates are chosen as an authentication process for your organization, remember to require the setup of a Web-enrollment server.
Authentication Protocols That Can Be Used by Different Operating Systems
For communication between systems in a heterogeneous network to occur, a mutual authentication algorithm must exist. Many possible options exist for Windows systems. Non-Windows systems use many systems and protocols that are not compatible with Windows systems. In addition, they might be able to use compatible remote access authentication protocols such as Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) and perhaps Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP), and many use basic authentication to Web-based applications. Table 6-4 lists the Windows authentication protocols and indicates the operating systems for which each authentication protocol can be used.
Caution Although the Kerberos authentication protocol is selected as being available for each operating system, this does not mean it is implemented and available on the version of the operating systems that are present in any environment.
Table 6-4 Authentication Protocols and the Operating Systems That Can Use Them
Note The question marks in the table are there because some Samba servers require a plain-text password to be used instead of the LM or NTLM network authentication protocol. Other Samba servers can participate and use one or more of the LM-based network authentication protocols.
Techniques for Strengthening Authentication Processes
It's not enough to simply find an authentication process that will work across disparate systems. If it were, passing passwords in clear text across the network might turn out to be the one protocol that every operating system might be configured to accept. Instead, you should seek to strengthen authentication protocols and, if this is a more secure solution, allow the use of multiple authentication protocols on the network.
Examples of choices that can be made and operations that can be implemented to strengthen authentication processes are:
• Use NTLMv2 where Kerberos cannot be used on a Windows Network
• Use Kerberos for authentication between UNIX and Windows systems
• Use certificates for authentication
The following sections describe these techniques and provide guidelines for when they are appropriate.






