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Service Publication and Service Principal Names Technical Reference

Services use service publication in the Active Directory directory service to provide information about themselves in the directory for easy discovery by client applications and other services. Service publication occurs when the installation program for a service publishes information about the service, including binding and keyword information, to the directory. In addition, Active Directory supports service principal names (SPNs) as a means by which client applications can identify and authenticate the services that they use. Service publication is accomplished through the creation of service objects (also called connection point objects) in Active Directory. Service authentication is accomplished through Kerberos authentication of SPNs.

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