# MIT Kerberos Documentation

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# kadmin authorization interface (kadm5_auth)

The kadm5_auth interface (new in release 1.16) allows modules to determine whether a client principal is authorized to perform an operation in the kadmin protocol, and to apply restrictions to principal operations. For a detailed description of the kadm5_auth interface, see the header file `<krb5/kadm5_auth_plugin.h>`.

A module can create and destroy per-process state objects by implementing the init and fini methods. State objects have the type kadm5_auth_modinfo, which is an abstract pointer type. A module should typically cast this to an internal type for the state object.

The kadm5_auth interface has one method for each kadmin operation, with parameters specific to the operation. Each method can return either 0 to authorize access, KRB5_PLUGIN_NO_HANDLE to defer the decision to other modules, or another error (canonically EPERM) to authoritatively deny access. Access is granted if at least one module grants access and no module authoritatively denies access.

The addprinc and modprinc methods can also impose restrictions on the principal operation by returning a `struct kadm5_auth_restrictions` object. The module should also implement the free_restrictions method if it dynamically allocates restrictions objects for principal operations.

kadm5_auth modules can optionally inspect principal or policy objects. To do this, the module must also include `<kadm5/admin.h>` to gain access to the structure definitions for those objects. As the kadmin interface is explicitly not as stable as other public interfaces, modules which do this may not retain compatibility across releases.