kinit Command Examples

Authenticate a principal with a Kerberos server to gain and cache a ticket. Note: A Kerberos principal can be either a user, service, or application. More information: https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/krb5-1.12/doc/user/user_commands/kinit.html.

• Authenticate a user and obtain a ticket-granting ticket:

kinit {{username}}

• Renew a ticket-granting ticket:

kinit -R

• Specify a lifetime for the ticket:

kinit -l {{5h}}

• Specify a total renewable lifetime for the ticket:

kinit -r {{1w}}

• Specify a different principal name to authenticate as:

kinit -p {{principal@REALM}}

• Specify a different keytab file to authenticate with:

kinit -t {{path/to/keytab}}