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<h1>Connection authentication</h1>
<p>
When connecting to libvirt, some connections may require client
authentication before allowing use of the APIs. The set of possible
authentication mechanisms is administrator controlled, independent
of applications using libvirt. Once authenticated, libvirt can apply
fine grained <a href="acl.html">access control</a> to the operations
performed by a client.
</p>
<ul id="toc"></ul>
<h2><a name="Auth_client_config">Client configuration</a></h2>
<p>
When connecting to a remote hypervisor which requires authentication,
most libvirt applications will prompt the user for the credentials. It is
also possible to provide a client configuration file containing all the
authentication credentials, avoiding any interaction. Libvirt will look
for the authentication file using the following sequence:
</p>
<ol>
<li>The file path specified by the $LIBVIRT_AUTH_FILE environment
variable.</li>
<li>The file path specified by the "authfile=/some/file" URI
query parameter</li>
<li>The file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/libvirt/auth.conf</li>
<li>The file /etc/libvirt/auth.conf</li>
</ol>
<p>
The auth configuration file uses the traditional <code>".ini"</code>
style syntax. There are two types of groups that can be present in
the config. First there are one or more <strong>credential</strong>
sets, which provide the actual authentication credentials. The keys
within the group may be:
</p>
<ul>
<li><code>username</code>: the user login name to act as. This
is relevant for ESX, Xen, HyperV and SSH, but probably not
the one you want to libvirtd with SASL.</li>
<li><code>authname</code>: the name to authorize as. This is
what is commonly required for libvirtd with SASL.</li>
<li><code>password</code>: the secret password</li>
<li><code>realm</code>: the domain realm for SASL, mostly
unused</li>
</ul>
<p>
Each set of credentials has a name, which is part of the group
entry name. Overall the syntax is
</p>
<pre>
[credentials-$NAME]
credname1=value1
credname2=value2</pre>
<p>
For example, to define two sets of credentials used for production
and test machines, using libvirtd, and a further ESX server for dev:
</p>
<pre>
[credentials-test]
authname=fred
password=123456
[credentials-prod]
authname=bar
password=letmein
[credentials-dev]
username=joe
password=hello</pre>
<p>
The second set of groups provide mappings of credentials to
specific machine services. The config file group names compromise
the service type and host:
</p>
<pre>
[auth-$SERVICE-$HOSTNAME]
credentials=$CREDENTIALS</pre>
<p>
For example, following the previous example, here is how to
list some machines
</p>
<pre>
[auth-libvirt-test1.example.com]
credentials=test
[auth-libvirt-test2.example.com]
credentials=test
[auth-libvirt-demo3.example.com]
credentials=test
[auth-libvirt-prod1.example.com]
credentials=prod
[auth-esx-dev1.example.com]
credentials=dev</pre>
<p>
The following service types are known to libvirt
</p>
<ol>
<li><code>libvirt</code> - used for connections to a libvirtd
server, which is configured with SASL auth</li>
<li><code>ssh</code> - used for connections to a Phyp server
over SSH</li>
<li><code>esx</code> - used for connections to an ESX or
VirtualCenter server</li>
<li><code>xen</code> - used for connections to a Xen Enterprise
sever using XenAPI</li>
</ol>
<p>
Applications using libvirt are free to use this same configuration
file for storing other credentials. For example, it can be used
to storage VNC or SPICE login credentials
</p>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_config">Server configuration</a></h2>
<p>
The libvirt daemon allows the administrator to choose the authentication
mechanisms used for client connections on each network socket independently.
This is primarily controlled via the libvirt daemon master config file in
<code>/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf</code>. Each of the libvirt sockets can
have its authentication mechanism configured independently. There is
currently a choice of <code>none</code>, <code>polkit</code>, and <code>sasl</code>.
The SASL scheme can be further configured to choose between a large
number of different mechanisms.
</p>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_unix_perms">UNIX socket permissions/group</a></h2>
<p>
If libvirt does not contain support for PolicyKit, then access control for
the UNIX domain socket is done using traditional file user/group ownership
and permissions. There are 2 sockets, one for full read-write access, the
other for read-only access. The RW socket will be restricted (mode 0700) to
only allow the <code>root</code> user to connect. The read-only socket will
be open access (mode 0777) to allow any user to connect.
</p>
<p>
To allow non-root users greater access, the <code>libvirtd.conf</code> file
can be edited to change the permissions via the <code>unix_sock_rw_perms</code>,
config parameter and to set a user group via the <code>unix_sock_group</code>
parameter. For example, setting the former to mode <code>0770</code> and the
latter <code>wheel</code> would let any user in the wheel group connect to
the libvirt daemon.
</p>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_polkit">UNIX socket PolicyKit auth</a></h2>
<p>
If libvirt contains support for PolicyKit, then access control options are
more advanced. The <code>unix_sock_auth</code> parameter will default to
<code>polkit</code>, and the file permissions will default to <code>0777</code>
even on the RW socket. Upon connecting to the socket, the client application
will be required to identify itself with PolicyKit. The default policy for the
RW daemon socket will require any application running in the current desktop
session to authenticate using the user's password. This is akin to <code>sudo</code>
auth, but does not require that the client application ultimately run as root.
Default policy will still allow any application to connect to the RO socket.
</p>
<p>
The default policy can be overridden by creating a new policy file in the
local override directory <code>/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/</code>.
Policy files should have a unique name ending with .pkla. Using reverse DNS
naming works well. Information on the options available can be found by
reading the pklocalauthority man page. The two libvirt daemon actions
available are named <code>org.libvirt.unix.manage</code> for full management
access, and <code>org.libvirt.unix.monitor</code> for read-only access.
</p>
<p>
As an example, this gives the user <code>fred</code> full management access:
</p>
<pre>[Allow fred libvirt management permissions]
Identity=unix-user:fred
Action=org.libvirt.unix.manage
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes</pre>
<p>
Further examples of PolicyKit setup can be found on the
<a href="http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/SSHPolicyKitSetup">wiki page</a>.
</p>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_username">Username/password auth</a></h2>
<p>
The plain TCP socket of the libvirt daemon defaults to using SASL for authentication.
The SASL mechanism configured by default is DIGEST-MD5, which provides a basic
username+password style authentication. It also provides for encryption of the data
stream, so the security of the plain TCP socket is on a par with that of the TLS
socket. If desired the UNIX socket and TLS socket can also have SASL enabled by
setting the <code>auth_unix_ro</code>, <code>auth_unix_rw</code>, <code>auth_tls</code>
config params in <code>libvirt.conf</code>.
</p>
<p>
Out of the box, no user accounts are defined, so no clients will be able to authenticate
on the TCP socket. Adding users and setting their passwords is done with the <code>saslpasswd2</code>
command. When running this command it is important to tell it that the appname is <code>libvirt</code>.
As an example, to add a user <code>fred</code>, run
</p>
<pre>
# saslpasswd2 -a libvirt fred
Password: xxxxxx
Again (for verification): xxxxxx
</pre>
<p>
To see a list of all accounts the <code>sasldblistusers2</code> command can be used.
This command expects to be given the path to the libvirt user database, which is kept
in <code>/etc/libvirt/passwd.db</code>
</p>
<pre>
# sasldblistusers2 -f /etc/libvirt/passwd.db
fred@t60wlan.home.berrange.com: userPassword
</pre>
<p>
Finally, to disable a user's access, the <code>saslpasswd2</code> command can be used
again:
</p>
<pre>
# saslpasswd2 -a libvirt -d fred
</pre>
<h2><a name="ACL_server_kerberos">Kerberos auth</a></h2>
<p>
The plain TCP socket of the libvirt daemon defaults to using SASL for authentication.
The SASL mechanism configured by default is DIGEST-MD5, which provides a basic
username+password style authentication. To enable Kerberos single-sign-on instead,
the libvirt SASL configuration file must be changed. This is <code>/etc/sasl2/libvirt.conf</code>.
The <code>mech_list</code> parameter must first be changed to <code>gssapi</code>
instead of the default <code>digest-md5</code>, and keytab should be set to
<code>/etc/libvirt/krb5.tab</code> . If SASL is enabled on the UNIX
and/or TLS sockets, Kerberos will also be used for them. Like DIGEST-MD5, the Kerberos
mechanism provides data encryption of the session.
</p>
<p>
Some operating systems do not install the SASL kerberos plugin by default. It
may be necessary to install a sub-package such as <code>cyrus-sasl-gssapi</code>.
To check whether the Kerberos plugin is installed run the <code>pluginviewer</code>
program and verify that <code>gssapi</code> is listed,eg:
</p>
<pre>
# pluginviewer
...snip...
Plugin "gssapiv2" [loaded], API version: 4
SASL mechanism: GSSAPI, best SSF: 56
security flags: NO_ANONYMOUS|NO_PLAINTEXT|NO_ACTIVE|PASS_CREDENTIALS|MUTUAL_AUTH
features: WANT_CLIENT_FIRST|PROXY_AUTHENTICATION|NEED_SERVER_FQDN
</pre>
<p>
Next it is necessary for the administrator of the Kerberos realm to
issue a principal for the libvirt server. There needs to be one
principal per host running the libvirt daemon. The principal should be
named <code>libvirt/full.hostname@KERBEROS.REALM</code>. This is
typically done by running the <code>kadmin.local</code> command on the
Kerberos server, though some Kerberos servers have alternate ways of
setting up service principals. Once created, the principal should be
exported to a keytab, copied to the host running the libvirt daemon
and placed in <code>/etc/libvirt/krb5.tab</code>
</p>
<pre>
# kadmin.local
kadmin.local: add_principal libvirt/foo.example.com
Enter password for principal "libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM":
Re-enter password for principal "libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM":
Principal "libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM" created.
kadmin.local: ktadd -k /root/libvirt-foo-example.tab libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM
Entry for principal libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM with kvno 4, encryption type Triple DES cbc mode with HMAC/sha1 added to keytab WRFILE:/root/libvirt-foo-example.tab.
Entry for principal libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM with kvno 4, encryption type ArcFour with HMAC/md5 added to keytab WRFILE:/root/libvirt-foo-example.tab.
Entry for principal libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM with kvno 4, encryption type DES with HMAC/sha1 added to keytab WRFILE:/root/libvirt-foo-example.tab.
Entry for principal libvirt/foo.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM with kvno 4, encryption type DES cbc mode with RSA-MD5 added to keytab WRFILE:/root/libvirt-foo-example.tab.
kadmin.local: quit
# scp /root/libvirt-foo-example.tab root@foo.example.com:/etc/libvirt/krb5.tab
# rm /root/libvirt-foo-example.tab
</pre>
<p>
Any client application wishing to connect to a Kerberos enabled libvirt server
merely needs to run <code>kinit</code> to gain a user principal. This may well
be done automatically when a user logs into a desktop session, if PAM is setup
to authenticate against Kerberos.
</p>
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