Authentication in the Taos Operating System

Edward Wobber, Martin Abadi, Mike Burrows, and Butler Lampson

Citation: Authentication in the Taos operating system. ACM Trans. Computer Systems 12, 1 (Feb. 1994), pp 3-32.

Links: Postscript, Acrobat of SRC report, Acrobat of TOCS version, Word, Web page, Acrobat of Word version.

Email: blampson@microsoft.com. This paper is at http://research.microsoft.com.

Abstract:

We describe a design for security in a distributed system and its implementation. In our design, applications gain access to security services through a narrow interface. This interface provides a notion of identity that includes simple principals, groups, roles, and delegations. A new operating system component manages principals, credentials, and secure channels. It checks credentials according to the formal rules of a logic of authentication. Our implementation is efficient enough to support a substantial user community.