How the KDC Prepares Authorization Data

When the Kerberos protocol is used for authentication, the list of SIDs that identify a security principal and the groups to which this principal belongs is transported to the local computer in the authorization data field of a session ticket. Authorization data is gathered in two separate steps — when the KDC in a Windows 2000 domain prepares a TGT and when the KDC prepares a session ticket for a server in the domain.

When a user requests a TGT, the KDC in the user's account domain queries the domain's Active Directory. The user's account record includes an attribute for the user's SID as well an attribute with SIDs for any domain security groups to which the user belongs. The list of SIDs returned by the KDC's query is placed in the TGT's authorization data field. In a multiple-domain environment, the KDC also queries the Global Catalog for universal groups that include the user or one of the user's domain security groups. If it finds any, the SIDs for these groups are added to the list in the TGT's authorization data field.

When the user requests a session ticket for a server, the KDC in the server's domain copies the contents of the TGT's authorization data field to the session ticket's authorization data field. If the server's domain is different from the user's account domain, the KDC queries Active Directory to find out whether any security groups in the local domain include the user or one of the user's security groups. If there are any such groups, their SIDs are added to the list in the session ticket's authorization data field.