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Using Outlook for Mac with Kerberos authentication

Office for Mac 2011 will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see these resources.

 

Applies to: Office for Mac 2011

Topic Last Modified: 2012-06-08

Outlook for Mac 2011 supports Kerberos protocol as a method of authentication with Microsoft Exchange Server and standalone LDAP accounts. Kerberos protocol uses cryptography to help provide secure mutual authentication for a network connection between a client and a server, or between two servers.

Kerberos protocol is based on ticketing. In this scheme, a client must provide a valid user name and password only once to prove their identity to an authentication server. Then, the authentication server grants the client strongly encrypted tickets that include client information and the session key that expires after a specified period of time. The client then attempts to decrypt the ticket by using its password. If the client successfully decrypts the ticket, it keeps the ticket, which is now shared by the client and the server. This decrypted ticket indicates the proof of the client's identity and is used to authenticate the client. The timestamp included in the ticket indicates that it's a recently generated ticket and is not a replay attack. If an attacker tries to capture and decrypt the information in a ticket, the breach will be limited to the current session. The client can use the same ticket on the network to request other network resources. To use this ticketing scheme, both the client and the server must have a trusted connection to the domain Key Distribution Center (KDC).

Mac OS X includes built-in support for Microsoft Kerberos authentication and Active Directory authentication policies, such as password changes, expiration and forced password changes, and Active Directory replication and failover. By leveraging the Mac OS X Kerberos service, Outlook for Mac uses the single sign-on mechanism to offer better password handling and a cleaner setup experience.

Benefits of using Kerberos authentication

Kerberos provides a secure, single sign-on, trusted third-party, mutual authentication service.

  • Secure  Kerberos is secure because it does not transmit passwords over the network in clear text.

  • Single sign-on  End users only need to log in once to access all network resources that support Kerberos authentication. After a user is authenticated through Kerberos at the start of a login session, their credentials are transparently passed to every resource that they access during the day.

  • Trusted third-party  Kerberos works through a centralized authentication server that all systems on the network inherently trust. All authentication requests are routed through the centralized Kerberos server.

  • Mutual authentication  Protects the confidentiality of sensitive information by verifying a user's identity and the identity of the server that they are communicating with.

Kerberos authentication and Outlook

You should determine the type of authentication that your organization's Exchange server uses. You can use Kerberos protocol or the other supported authentication methods: NTLM, basic authentication, or forms-based authentication for the Exchange server. In Outlook for Mac, you do not have control over the type of authentication methods that users choose. You should ask your users to choose Kerberos authentication if your organization's Exchange server uses it and their computers are connected to the corporate network.

When you set up your Exchange account in Outlook for Mac, you must click Kerberos on the Method pop-up menu, or for all other types of authentication, click User Name and Password. When you choose the Kerberos authentication method, the User Name (which includes the domain) and Password fields are disabled. The disabled fields serve as a visual clue that Kerberos authentication is mutually exclusive with the other available authentication. When Kerberos protocol is enabled, it is used to attempt authentication against all of the servers related to the account, such as HTTP or LDAP. When Kerberos protocol is disabled in the account settings, Kerberos authentication will not be attempted against any of the servers related to the account.

For new Exchange accounts, Kerberos protocol is disabled by default with None selected on the Kerberos ID pop-up menu. When you enable Kerberos protocol, Outlook for Mac allows the user to choose or create a valid Kerberos ID. If the account is created using auto-detect, the Kerberos ID pop-up menu is populated with the existing ID. Kerberos protocol attempts auto-detect against servers if there is at least one Kerberos ticket present in the Mac OS X credential cache or a _kerberos._tcp.<domain> record is available from the Domain Name Server (DNS). If the auto-detect process is successful, the ticket is populated on the account’s Kerberos ID pop-up menu. If the auto-detect process does not include a successful Kerberos authentication, the account’s Kerberos setting will be disabled and Kerberos ID pop-up menu is set to None.

To create a new Kerberos ID, provide the user name, password, and realm information. Realm is another name for a "domain." In the Authenticate to Kerberos dialog box, in the Name field, type Account ID. Sometimes this is the part of your e-mail address before the "@" symbol.

Note

In the Realm field, you must type the domain name in all uppercase letters, such as ALPINESKIHOUSE.COM.

Kerberos authentication for administrators

Kerberos authentication might fail if the account’s primary mailbox server does not support Kerberos protocol or if the KDC fails. To ensure that users are authenticated successfully by using Kerberos protocol, you should make sure that the KDC is up and running for users to access the different network services. In enterprise and mission-critical environments, it's important for administrators to create at least one failover KDC.

When Kerberos authentication fails, Outlook for Mac provides the option of using the other supported authentication mechanisms. The types of authentication methods that are available for Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts can vary depending on whether authentication is performed on a front-end server or on a back-end server.