ntlm_auth - Unix, Linux Command

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.

ntlm_auth is a helper utility that authenticates users using NT/LM authentication. It returns 0 if the users is authenticated successfully and 1 if access was denied. ntlm_auth uses winbind to access the user and authentication data for a domain. This utility is only indended to be used by other programs (currently Squid and mod_ntlm_winbind)

OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS

The winbindd(8) daemon must be operational for many of these commands to function.

Some of these commands also require access to the directory winbindd_privileged in $LOCKDIR. This should be done either by running this command as root or providing group access to the winbindd_privileged directory. For security reasons, this directory should not be world-accessable.

OPTIONS

--helper-protocol=PROTO Operate as a stdio-based helper. Valid helper protocols are:

squid-2.4-basic Server-side helper for use with Squid 2.4's basic (plaintext) authentication.

squid-2.5-basic Server-side helper for use with Squid 2.5's basic (plaintext) authentication.

squid-2.5-ntlmssp Server-side helper for use with Squid 2.5's NTLMSSP authentication.

Requires access to the directory winbindd_privileged in $LOCKDIR. The protocol used is described here: http://devel.squid-cache.org/ntlm/squid_helper_protocol.html. This protocol has been extended to allow the NTLMSSP Negotiate packet to be included as an argument to the YR command. (Thus avoiding loss of information in the protocol exchange).

ntlmssp-client-1 Client-side helper for use with arbitrary external programs that may wish to use Samba's NTLMSSP authentication knowledge.

This helper is a client, and as such may be run by any user. The protocol used is effectively the reverse of the previous protocol. A YR command (without any arguments) starts the authentication exchange.

gss-spnego Server-side helper that implements GSS-SPNEGO. This uses a protocol that is almost the same as squid-2.5-ntlmssp, but has some subtle differences that are undocumented outside the source at this stage.

Requires access to the directory winbindd_privileged in $LOCKDIR.

gss-spnego-client Client-side helper that implements GSS-SPNEGO. This also uses a protocol similar to the above helpers, but is currently undocumented.

ntlm-server-1 Server-side helper protocol, intended for use by a RADIUS server or the 'winbind' plugin for pppd, for the provision of MSCHAP and MSCHAPv2 authentication.

This protocol consists of lines in the form: Parameter: value and Parameter:: Base64-encode value. The presence of a single period . indicates that one side has finished supplying data to the other. (Which in turn could cause the helper to authenticate the user).

Curently implemented parameters from the external program to the helper are:

Username The username, expected to be in Samba's unix charset.

Username The user's domain, expected to be in Samba's unix charset.

Full-Username The fully qualified username, expected to be in Samba's unix charset and qualified with the winbind separator.

LANMAN-Challenge The 8 byte LANMAN Challenge value, generated randomly by the server, or (in cases such as MSCHAPv2) generated in some way by both the server and the client.

LANMAN-Response The 24 byte LANMAN Response value, calculated from the user's password and the supplied LANMAN Challenge. Typically, this is provided over the network by a client wishing to authenticate.

NT-Response The >= 24 byte NT Response calculated from the user's password and the supplied LANMAN Challenge. Typically, this is provided over the network by a client wishing to authenticate.

Password The user's password. This would be provided by a network client, if the helper is being used in a legacy situation that exposes plaintext passwords in this way.

Request-User-Session-Key Apon sucessful authenticaiton, return the user session key associated with the login.

Request-LanMan-Session-Key Apon sucessful authenticaiton, return the LANMAN session key associated with the login.

Warning Implementors should take care to base64 encode
                any data (such as usernames/passwords) that may contain malicous user data, such as
                a newline. They may also need to decode strings from
                the helper, which likewise may have been base64 encoded.

--username=USERNAME Specify username of user to authenticate

--domain=DOMAIN Specify domain of user to authenticate

--workstation=WORKSTATION Specify the workstation the user authenticated from

--challenge=STRING NTLM challenge (in HEXADECIMAL)

--lm-response=RESPONSE LM Response to the challenge (in HEXADECIMAL)

--nt-response=RESPONSE NT or NTLMv2 Response to the challenge (in HEXADECIMAL)

--password=PASSWORD User's plaintext password

If not specified on the command line, this is prompted for when required.

For the NTLMSSP based server roles, this parameter specifies the expected password, allowing testing without winbindd operational.

--request-lm-key Retreive LM session key

--request-nt-key Request NT key

--diagnostics Perform Diagnostics on the authentication chain. Uses the password from --password or prompts for one.

--require-membership-of={SID|Name} Require that a user be a member of specified group (either name or SID) for authentication to succeed.

-d|--debuglevel=level level is an integer from 0 to 10. The default value if this parameter is not specified is 0.

The higher this value, the more detail will be logged to the log files about the activities of the server. At level 0, only critical errors and serious warnings will be logged. Level 1 is a reasonable level for day-to-day running - it generates a small amount of information about operations carried out.

Levels above 1 will generate considerable amounts of log data, and should only be used when investigating a problem. Levels above 3 are designed for use only by developers and generate HUGE amounts of log data, most of which is extremely cryptic.

Note that specifying this parameter here will override the log level parameter in the smb.conf file.

-V Prints the program version number.

-s <configuration file> The file specified contains the configuration details required by the server. The information in this file includes server-specific information such as what printcap file to use, as well as descriptions of all the services that the server is to provide. See smb.conf for more information. The default configuration file name is determined at compile time.

-l|--log-basename=logdirectory Base directory name for log/debug files. The extension ".progname" will be appended (e.g. log.smbclient, log.smbd, etc...). The log file is never removed by the client.

-h|--help Print a summary of command line options.

EXAMPLE SETUP

To setup ntlm_auth for use by squid 2.5, with both basic and NTLMSSP authentication, the following should be placed in the squid.conf file.

auth_param ntlm program ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-ntlmssp
auth_param basic program ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-basic
auth_param basic children 5
auth_param basic realm Squid proxy-caching web server
auth_param basic credentialsttl 2 hours

Note

This example assumes that ntlm_auth has been installed into your path, and that the group permissions on winbindd_privileged are as described above.

To setup ntlm_auth for use by squid 2.5 with group limitation in addition to the above example, the following should be added to the squid.conf file.

auth_param ntlm program ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-ntlmssp --require-membership-of='WORKGROUP\Domain Users'
auth_param basic program ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-basic --require-membership-of='WORKGROUP\Domain Users'

TROUBLESHOOTING

If you're experiencing problems with authenticating Internet Explorer running under MS Windows 9X or Millenium Edition against ntlm_auth's NTLMSSP authentication helper (--helper-protocol=squid-2.5-ntlmssp), then please read the Microsoft Knowledge Base article #239869 and follow instructions described there.

VERSION

This man page is correct for version 3.0 of the Samba suite.

AUTHOR

The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.

The ntlm_auth manpage was written by Jelmer Vernooij and Andrew Bartlett.