Proxy-Based Authorization and Accounting for Distributed Systems

In recent years there has been much interest in the secure authentication of principals across computer networks. There has been less discussion of distributed mechanisms to support authorization and accounting. Authorization and accounting are more closely related to authentication than most people realize. By generalizing the authentication model to support restricted proxies, both authorization and accounting can be easily supported. This paper shows how to support restricted proxies in an authentication system, presents an appropriate model for authorization and accounting, and describes how they may be easily implemented on top of restricted proxies. 1 Introduction The problem of authentication across computer networks has received much attention in recent years. Authentication is often only a step in the process of authorization or accounting. The end goal is to verify that the individual making a request is authorized to do so, or to guarantee that the correct individual is cha..