Chapter 5. Troubleshooting

Working with Kerberos can seem like an exercise in futility. The combination of complex software, interoperation between Kerberos implementations and diverse operating systems, and terse (at best) error messages tend to bring premature balding to the administrators responsible for the smooth operation of their systems. However, working with Kerberos does not have to be this frustrating.

To provide a systematic approach to solving problems in Kerberos, this chapter begins with a discussion of the various debugging tools and techniques, including a sample decision tree to follow when facing a new problem. Becoming familiar with these tools and techniques before disaster strikes will be helpful when the inevitable problem occurs. The second section will use those tools and techniques to diagnose some typical problems that occur in a Kerberos system. It will describe the symptoms of these common problems and then show possible solutions to solve them.