Heimdal

Heimdal is a software program that implements Kerberos 5, a network authentication protocol that is widely used in computer security. The software was largely written in Sweden, although this is now less important than it was when the program was first created. The Heimdal project is available free of charge under a three clause BSD-style license. Other free implementations of Kerberos 5 include those from MIT and Shishi.

The most recent release of Heimdal includes several new features and improvements. These include a read-only PKCS11 provider that is built in to hx509, as well as improved documentation for the hx509, hcrypto, and ntlm libraries. The software also has better compatibility with Windows 2008 Server pre-releases and Vista, along with support for native credential cache in Mac OS X 10.5. In addition, Heimdal now includes a pkg-config file (heimdal-gssapi.pc), and several bugs have been addressed and fixed.

Overall, Heimdal is a powerful and reliable software program for managing network authentication using the Kerberos 5 protocol. Its availability under a free license makes it a popular choice for many organizations, and the latest release includes important new features and improvements that further enhance its functionality and ease of use.