NFSSEC(7) Standards, Environments, and Macros NFSSEC(7)

NAME

nfssec - overview of NFS security modes

DESCRIPTION

The mount_nfs(8) and share_nfs(8) commands each provide a way to specify
the security mode to be used on an NFS file system through the sec=mode
option. mode can be sys, dh, krb5, krb5i, krb5p, or none. These security
modes can also be added to the automount maps. Note that mount_nfs(8) and
automount(8) do not support sec=none at this time. mount_nfs(8) allows
you to specify a single security mode; share_nfs(8) allows you to specify
multiple modes (or none). With multiple modes, an NFS client can choose
any of the modes in the list.


The sec=mode option on the share_nfs(8) command line establishes the
security mode of NFS servers. If the NFS connection uses the NFS Version
3 protocol, the NFS clients must query the server for the appropriate
mode to use. If the NFS connection uses the NFS Version 2 protocol, then
the NFS client uses the default security mode, which is currently sys.
NFS clients may force the use of a specific security mode by specifying
the sec=mode option on the command line. However, if the file system on
the server is not shared with that security mode, the client may be
denied access.


If the NFS client wants to authenticate the NFS server using a particular
(stronger) security mode, the client wants to specify the security mode
to be used, even if the connection uses the NFS Version 3 protocol. This
guarantees that an attacker masquerading as the server does not
compromise the client.


The NFS security modes are described below. Of these, the krb5, krb5i,
krb5p modes use the Kerberos V5 protocol for authenticating and
protecting the shared filesystems. Before these can be used, the system
must be configured to be part of a Kerberos realm. See kerberos(7).

sys
Use AUTH_SYS authentication. The user's UNIX user-id and group-
ids are passed in the clear on the network, unauthenticated by
the NFS server. This is the simplest security method and
requires no additional administration. It is the default used
by Solaris NFS Version 2 clients and Solaris NFS servers.

According to the ONC RPC specification (RFC 5531), AUTH_SYS
authentication supports up to 16 groups for a user only. To
workaround this limitation, in the case where the NFS client
supplied 16 groups in AUTH_SYS and NGROUPS_MAX is more than 16,
the NFS server will lookup the user's groups on the server
instead of relying on the list of groups provided by the NFS
client via AUTH_SYS.


dh
Use a Diffie-Hellman public key system (AUTH_DES, which is
referred to as AUTH_DH in the forthcoming Internet RFC).


krb5
Use Kerberos V5 protocol to authenticate users before granting
access to the shared filesystem.


krb5i
Use Kerberos V5 authentication with integrity checking
(checksums) to verify that the data has not been tampered with.


krb5p
User Kerberos V5 authentication, integrity checksums, and
privacy protection (encryption) on the shared filesystem. This
provides the most secure filesystem sharing, as all traffic is
encrypted. It should be noted that performance might suffer on
some systems when using krb5p, depending on the computational
intensity of the encryption algorithm and the amount of data
being transferred.


none
Use null authentication (AUTH_NONE). NFS clients using AUTH_NONE
have no identity and are mapped to the anonymous user nobody by
NFS servers. A client using a security mode other than the one
with which a Solaris NFS server shares the file system has its
security mode mapped to AUTH_NONE. In this case, if the file
system is shared with sec=none, users from the client are mapped
to the anonymous user. The NFS security mode none is supported
by share_nfs(8), but not by mount_nfs(8) or automount(8).

FILES

/etc/nfssec.conf
NFS security service configuration file

SEE ALSO

rpc_clnt_auth(3NSL), secure_rpc(3NSL), nfssec.conf(5), attributes(7),
kerberos(7), automount(8), kclient(8), mount_nfs(8), share_nfs(8)

NOTES

/etc/nfssec.conf lists the NFS security services. Do not edit this file.
It is not intended to be user-configurable. See kclient(8).

November 20, 2014 NFSSEC(7)