## Kerberos Tickets

When you authenticate yourself with Kerberos, through either the Leash program or the kinit command, Kerberos gives you an initial Kerberos ticket. (A Kerberos ticket is an encrypted protocol message that provides authentication.) Kerberos uses this ticket for network utilities such as telnet, ftp or email. The ticket transactions are done transparently, so you don't have to worry about their management.

Note, however, that tickets expire. Privileged tickets, such as root instance tickets, expire in a few minutes, while tickets that carry more ordinary privileges may be good for several hours or a day, depending on the installation's policy. On Athena, the default time limit is 10 hours; if your login session extends beyond the time limit, you will have to reauthenticate yourself to Kerberos to get new tickets.

See Also

An Authentication Service

How Does the Other Guy Know Who I Am?