1

I have two linux machines. One is a machine behind a typical dynamic IP cable modem + OpenWRT router. The machine behind the NAT regularly updates a forward DNS record via an API call with my provider (ie. there is a dynamic DNS set up to identify this machine). The router forwards port 2049 and 22 to this machine just fine. When a machine on the public internet tries to ssh to this machine using Kerberos authentication, it works thanks to the option

    ignore_acceptor_hostname = true

in krb5.conf on both server and client (without this I get "Ticket isn't for us" errors due to reverse dns mismatches).

However, when a machine on the public internet tries to nfs4 mount this machine with security krb5p, it doesn't work and gives

mount.nfs4: access denied by server while mounting my-dynamic-dns.name.here:/home

running rpc.gssd -v -v -v -f on the client machine shows that it is looking up my dynamic dns name, and then reverse looking up that ip address and then trying to get a kerberos principal. Error message looks something like:

WARNING: Failed to create krb5 context for user with uid 0 for server RNS-Record.from.my.isp.goes.here

On the modern internet, where IP addresses are "owned" by providers and everyone is using a VPS etc, there is absolutely NO reason to think that RDNS records mean anything at all.

What I want is for rpc.gssd and other associated nfs4 machinery to NOT try to rnds the IP address, and instead just use the name I provided in the mount command.

Things that WON'T work include modifying /etc/hosts because the ip address is dynamic.

Any suggestions as to how I can configure my public machines to connect to this machine behind a dynamic IP / NAT via NFS4 with kerberos security?

note that in /etc/krb5.conf I do have the line

rdns=false

which prevents kerberos from doing RDNS, but doesn't seem to stop NFS4 from doing the same.

1
  • Also note, the machine on the internal network shares its nfs mounts with other internal network machines just fine using nfs4 and kerberos. So this isn't a misconfiguration of the nfs daemon or the kerberos system or anything like that. it's specific to the problem of trying to contact this internal server from the public internet via its dynamic DNS name and a port-forward. Also note that the fact I can ssh into the machine using kerberos suggests that it's NFS specific, NFS seems to be doing the RDNS and borking the whole thing.
    – dlakelan
    Nov 10, 2016 at 16:46

1 Answer 1

1

Well, to confirm that it's an RDNS problem, I put the current entry for my host into the /etc/hosts file on the client which is on the public internet. It was able to mount the directory no problem. So, although I can't figure out how to disable reverse DNS, the hack I'm going to use is to run a frequent cron job that forward looks up the current IP from my dynamic hostname and edits the /etc/host file on the client.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .