Understanding the Kerberos Architecture

Before we start configuring Kerberos in a Hadoop environment, we need to get a good understanding of Kerberos and its workings. The following diagram describes the various system components in the Kerberos environment:

Every Kerberos environment will have a Key Distribution Center (KDC), which is responsible for managing the credentials of users and services in the network. KDC is the centrally located credential store used by Kerberos to authenticate clients.

An example of client would be any user or software service trying to access the network.

As you can seen in the preceding diagram, the KDC is made up of three components:

• Authentication Service: This component is responsible for all authentication-related operations

• Database: This component stores the secret keys of all the users and services on the network

• Ticket Granting Server: This component is responsible for granting the service tickets to users and other services

Using the preceding diagram...