[krbdev.mit.edu #8913] Deleting master key principal entry shouldn't be possible

"Greg Hudson via RT" <[email protected]> Thu, 11 Jun 2020 17:20:31 -0400

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.encryption.kerberos.bugs
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Thu Jun 11 17:20:31 2020: Request 8913 was acted upon.
 Transaction: Ticket created by [email protected]
       Queue: krb5
     Subject: Deleting master key principal entry shouldn't be possible
       Owner: Nobody
  Requestors: [email protected]
      Status: open
 Ticket <URL: https://krbdev.mit.edu/rt/Ticket/Display.html?id=8913 >


Running "kadmin.local delprinc K/M" pretty much bricks a KDB. Authentication
will continue to work as long as the current krb5kdc process is running, but
essentially all admin operations will fail, and (short of writing custom code)
there does not seem to be any way to recover. In contrast, other admin
principals like krbtgt/REALM can simply be recreated with random keys.