rpc_gss_seccreate() is used by an appliction to create a security context using the RPCSEC_GSS protocol, making use of the underlying GSS-API network layer. rpc_gss_seccreate() allows an application to specify the type of security mechanism (for example, Kerberos v5), the type of service (for example, integrity checking), and the Quality of Protection (QOP) desired for transferring data.

Information on RPCSEC_GSS data types for parameters may be found on the rpcsec_gss(3NSL) man page.

clnt

This is the RPC client handle. clnt may be obtained, for example, from clnt_create().

principal

This is the identity of the server principal, specified in the form service@host, where service is the name of the service the client wishes to access and host is the fully qualified name of the host where the service resides -- for example, nfs@mymachine.eng.company.com.

mechanism

This is an ASCII string which indicates which security mechanism to use with this data. Appropriate mechanisms may be found in the file /etc/gss/mech; additionally, rpc_gss_get_mechanisms() returns a list of supported security mechanisms (as null-terminated strings).

service_type

This sets the initial type of service for the session -- privacy, integrity, authentication, or none.

qop

This is an ASCII string which sets the quality of protection (QOP) for the session. Appropriate values for this string may be found in the file /etc/gss/qop. Additionally, supported QOPs are returned (as null-terminated strings) by rpc_gss_get_mech_info().

options_req

This structure contains options which are passed directly to the underlying GSS_API layer. If the caller specifies NULL for this parameter, defaults are used. (See NOTES, below.)

options_ret

These GSS-API options are returned to the caller. If the caller does not need to see these options, then it may specify NULL for this parameter. (See NOTES, below.)

rpc_gss_seccreate() returns a security context handle (an RPC authentication handle) of type AUTH. If rpc_gss_seccreate() cannot return successfully, the application can get an error number by calling rpc_gss_get_error().

/etc/gss/mech

File containing valid security mechanisms

/etc/gss/qop

File containing valid QOP values .

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

auth_destroy(3NSL), rpc(3NSL), rpc_gss_get_error(3NSL), rpc_gss_get_mechanisms(3NSL), rpcsec_gss(3NSL), mech(4), qop(4), attributes(5)

ONC+ Developer's Guide

Linn, J. RFC 2743, Generic Security Service Application Program Interface Version 2, Update 1. Network Working Group. January 2000.

Contexts may be destroyed normally, with auth_destroy(). See auth_destroy(3NSL)