Network Working Group M. Swift
Request for Comments: 3244 University of Washington
Category: Informational J. Trostle
Cisco Systems
J. Brezak
Microsoft
February 2002
Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change Password
and Set Password Protocols
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo specifies Microsoft's Windows 2000 Kerberos change password
and set password protocols. The Windows 2000 Kerberos change
password protocol interoperates with the original Kerberos change
password protocol. Change password is a request reply protocol that
includes a KRB_PRIV message that contains the new password for the
user.
1. Introduction
Microsoft's Windows 2000 Kerberos change password protocol
interoperates with the original Kerberos change password protocol.
Change password is a request reply protocol that includes a KRB_PRIV
message that contains the new password for the user. The original
change password protocol does not allow an administrator to set a
password for a new user. This functionality is useful in some
environments, and this proposal extends the change password protocol
to allow password setting. The changes are: adding new fields to the
request message to indicate the principal which is having its
password set, not requiring the initial flag in the service ticket,
using a new protocol version number, and adding three new result
codes.
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
2. The Protocol
The service accepts requests on UDP port 464 and TCP port 464 as
well. The protocol consists of a single request message followed by
a single reply message. For UDP transport, each message must be
fully contained in a single UDP packet.
For TCP transport, there is a 4 octet header in network byte order
that precedes the message and specifies the length of the message.
Request Message
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| message length | protocol version number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| AP_REQ length | AP_REQ data /
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
/ KRB-PRIV message /
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
All 16 bit fields are in big-endian order.
message length field: contains the number of bytes in the message
including this field.
protocol version number: contains the hex constant 0xff80 (big-endian
integer).
AP-REQ length: length of AP-REQ data, in bytes. If the length is
zero, then the last field contains a KRB-ERROR message instead of a
KRB-PRIV message.
AP-REQ data: (see [1]) The AP-REQ message must be for the service
principal kadmin/changepw@REALM, where REALM is the REALM of the user
who wishes to change/set his password. The authenticator in the AP-
REQ must include a subsession key. (NOTE: The subsession key must be
pseudo-randomly generated and must never be reused for multiple
authenticators.) To enable setting of passwords, it is not required
that the initial flag be set in the Kerberos service ticket.
KRB-PRIV message (see [1]) This user-data field in the KRB-PRIV
message is encrypted using the subkey from the authenticator in the
AP-REQ data. The usec and seq-number fields of the KRB_PRIV message
are present and have the same value as the seq-number field in the
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
authenticator from the AP_REQ message (the seq-number in the
authenticator will be present). The server ignores the optional
r-address field in the KRB_PRIV message, if it is present.
The user-data component of the message consists of the following
ASN.1 structure encoded as an OCTET STRING:
ChangePasswdData ::= SEQUENCE {
newpasswd[0] OCTET STRING,
targname[1] PrincipalName OPTIONAL,
targrealm[2] Realm OPTIONAL
}
The server must verify the AP-REQ message, check whether the client
principal in the ticket is authorized to set/change the password
(either for that principal, or for the principal in the targname
field if present), and decrypt the new password. The server also
checks whether the initial flag is required for this request,
replying with status 0x0007 if it is not set and should be. An
authorization failure is cause to respond with status 0x0005. For
forward compatibility, the server should be prepared to ignore fields
after targrealm in the structure that it does not understand.
The newpasswd field contains the cleartext password, and the server
will apply any local policy checks including password policy checks.
The server then generates the appropriate keytypes from the password
and stores them in the KDC database. If all goes well, status 0x0000
is returned to the client in the reply message (see below).
Reply Message
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| message length | protocol version number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| AP_REP length | AP-REP data /
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
/ KRB-PRIV message /
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
All 16 bit fields are in big-endian order.
message length field: contains the number of bytes in the message
including this field.
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
protocol version number: contains the hex constant 0x0001 (big-endian
integer). (The reply message has the same format as the original
change password protocol.)
AP-REP length: length of AP-REP data, in bytes. If the length is
zero, then the last field contains a KRB-ERROR message instead of a
KRB-PRIV message.
AP-REP data: the AP-REP is the response to the AP-REQ in the request
packet.
KRB-PRIV message: This KRB-PRIV message must be encrypted with the
subsession key from the authenticator in the AP-REQ data.
The server will respond with a KRB-PRIV message unless it cannot
decode the client AP-REQ or KRB-PRIV message, in which case it will
respond with a KRB-ERROR message. NOTE: Unlike change password
version 1, the KRB-ERROR message will be sent back without any
encapsulation.
The user-data component of the KRB-PRIV message, or e-data component
of the KRB-ERROR message, consists of the following data.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| result code | result string /
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
result code (16 bits) (result codes 0-4 are from the original change
password protocol):
The result code must have one of the following values
(big-endian integer):
KRB5_KPASSWD_SUCCESS 0 request succeeds (This value
is not allowed in a KRB-ERROR
message)
KRB5_KPASSWD_MALFORMED 1 request fails due to being
malformed
KRB5_KPASSWD_HARDERROR 2 request fails due to "hard"
error in processing the
request (for example, there
is a resource or other
problem causing the request
to fail)
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
KRB5_KPASSWD_AUTHERROR 3 request fails due to an error
in authentication processing
KRB5_KPASSWD_SOFTERROR 4 request fails due to a
"soft" error in processing
the request
KRB5_KPASSWD_ACCESSDENIED 5 requestor not authorized
KRB5_KPASSWD_BAD_VERSION 6 protocol version unsupported
KRB5_KPASSWD_INITIAL_FLAG_NEEDED 7 initial flag required
0xFFFF is returned if the request fails for some other reason.
Although only a few non-zero result codes are specified here, the
client should accept any non-zero result code as indicating
failure.
result string:
This field contains information which might be useful to the user,
such as feedback about policy failures. The string is encoded in
UTF-8. It may be omitted if the server does not wish to include
it. If it is present, the client will display the string to the
user.
3. Security Considerations
Password policies should be enforced to make sure that users do not
pick passwords (for change password) that are vulnerable to brute
force password guessing attacks. An administrator who is authorized
to set other principal's passwords is highly trusted and must also
carefully protect his/her own credentials.
4. References
[1] Kohl, J. and C. Neuman, "The Kerberos Network Authentication
Service (V5)", RFC 1510, September 1993.
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
5. Authors' Addresses
Mike Swift
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
EMail:
[email protected]
Jonathan Trostle
Cisco Systems
170 W. Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
EMail:
[email protected]
John Brezak
Microsoft
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
EMail:
[email protected]
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RFC 3244 Microsoft Windows 2000 Kerberos Change & Set February 2002
6. Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
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included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
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the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
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English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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