Smart Card Logon and Integration with Kerberos

This article provides the step by step process during Smart Card authentication to Active Directory. How does Smart Card authentication work with Active Directory and what are the steps when a user logins to Active Directory with a Smart Card. (Here is link to How does Kerberos Protocol work)

Although this article is from 2000, its steps remain the same as of Windows 2012 infrastructure with Kerberos authentication.

Smart Card Logon Integration with Kerberos

  • By Roberta Bragg
  • October 1st, 2000
Learn the basic behind-the-scenes steps for Smart Card logon under Kerberos. (This article was published in redmondmag in 2000)
When smart cards are used for authentication in Win2K, a copy of the certificate and the private key can be stored on the smart card. When the user inserts the card in the reader, he or she will be prompted to enter the pin. What happens next? How does this operation provide the credentials necessary for a logon system based on Kerberos?
Kerberos doesn’t use public key cryptography; instead, it uses a session or symmetric key. In order for a smart card interface to work, some work has to occur before Kerberos can do its job. Win2K implements a proposed extension to the Kerberos standard and integrates smart card logon with Kerberos. Here’s what happens:
  1. If a reader is attached to the user’s machine, the user is prompted to put in a card.
  2. Then the user is prompted to enter a pin.
  3. The logon request is passed to the Local Security Authority (LSA).
  4. LSA communicates with the Kerberos authentication package on the client.
  5. Kerberos sends a request to the Kerberos Distribution Center (KDC) on the domain controller for authentication. The request includes a copy of the x.509 certificate (from the smart card) in the pre-authentication data field of the request and is signed by the private key.
  6. The KDC builds a certification path from the certificate to a root CA in the system root store.
  7. In Win2K, there must be an enterprise Certification Authority (CA, published in Active Directory). This prevents a rogue CA certified in another CA hierarchy from issuing a certificate in the domain.
  8. The KDC uses the public key from the certificate to verify the signature.
  9. KDC verifies the timestamp is within skew time, the time period during which a request can be processed. This helps to detect a replay attack.
  10. KDC looks in the AD for account information.
  11. If all tests are passed, the KDC returns a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT). The KDC provides a copy of its certificate as well and signs the returned information with its private key.
  12. The client verifies the KDC by building a certificate path from the certificate to the trusted root CA and uses the KDC public key to verify the reply signature.
  13. If all is OK, the normal Kerberos path is followed from here (the TGT is used to get a service ticket and hence to the user’s desktop).
At the end of step 13, the Smart Card authentication has completed and finally the kerberos TGT is provided to the client. In case of login via username and password, upon successful authentication, a kerberos TGT would similarly have been provided to the client. The difference in Smart Card authentication being it is a 2-Factor authentication which is considered to be a strong form of authentication.
After successful authentication the client receives a TGT. This is the end result of client authentication to the KDC (or Active Directory), in both cases of user login via username/password or Smart Card login.
The Subject Alternative Name populated with the upn attribute, which may be the user's email address. (upn attribute selected may be email address or any other unique attribute)
References

 How to determine whether user logged using smart card?
Jan De Clercq | Oct 06, 2009

 Windows doesn't have a specific event ID to differentiate a smart card logon from a normal, password-based logon, but you can find out whether a logon used a smart card by checking the fields of a successful Kerberos logon event. That's right, a Kerberos logon event, because in Windows you can only log on using a smart card when you authenticate to the domain using the Kerberos authentication protocol.

 In Windows, a successful Kerberos authentication request generates security event ID 672 on the Domain Controller (DC). To be more precise, event ID 672 signals a successful Kerberos Authentication Service Request (AS-REQ). This is the Kerberos protocol sequence where a user passes his credentials to a DC and obtains a Kerberos Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) from a DC.

 Besides recording information such as 
(1) what user requested the ticket and 
(2) their machine's IP address, 
Event 672 also records the kind of credentials the user forwarded to the DC. This info is kept in the pre-authentication type (patype) field of a 672 event. Smart cards use public keys for pre-authentication and will contain a 14, 15, 16, or 17 pre-authentication type value. So if you see one of these pre-authentication type values in a 672 event on the DC, you know that the user logged on to Windows using a smart card.

 In fact, these pre-authentication type values tell you that Windows used the Kerberos Public Key Cryptography for Initial Authentication in Kerberos (PKINIT) protocol extension for authenticating the user. See this Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more info on PKINIT.
In addition to smart card logon, PKINIT can be used for other public-key based Kerberos authentication exchanges, but so far the only Kerberos authentication flavors that use PKINIT in Windows are smart card logons.

 Additional note for Smart Card Logon  (managing Certificates stores for Smart Card authentication)
During smart card logon the user proves their identity to a domain controller by means of a certificate, conversely the domain controller must prove its identity to the client with it's own certificate.  Both sides of this mutual authentication must be successful before a successful logon can occur.  When a certificate is used for authentication the following three tests are performed to make sure the certificates are valid:
  • The certificate is within its validation period.  The certificate falls within the issued and expired dates on the certificate.
  • The certificate must chain to a trusted root certificate.  The computer validating the certificate must trust the root certificate it chains to.
  • The certificate has not been revoked.  The computer validating the certificate must be able to confirm the certificate has not been revoked.  The computer must be able to retrieve a copy of the certificate revocation list (CRL) from the certificate authority that issued the certificate or use some other method for validation like OCSP.
If any one of these checks fails, on either side of the mutual authentication, then logon will fail.
In order to use smart cards for logon you need to have a few things in place:
  1. Identity certificates for all domain controllers that were issued by a trusted source. 
  2. Identity certificates for each user issued by a trusted source.
  3. Certificates from each of the issuing certificate authorities (Issuing CA in diagram below) that the identity certificates above were generated on.
  4. All certificates need to be placed in the correct certificate stores.
  5. All certificates used must be trusted.
For above (1) the Certificate issued for the Domain Controller should have the Enhanced Key Usage that has KDC Authentication and Server Authentication enabled. If these two are not enabled the Smart Card login will not work even if all the above steps have been put in place. Here is how the Enhanced Key Usage property of the DC Cert should look like below. (view it under mmc)

 Note: Certs which are for a device, host, or user, they require only Server Authentication ad Client Authentication as below
For (2) the Certificate property needs to have just the Client Authentication and Smart Card Logon enabled. No need for the all the 4 enabled for user cert.
For 3) this means the issuing CA or the intermediate CA certs should also be available, and 4) means that each of the certs need to be populated in the appropriate certificate stores, for example the DC Cert are to be stored in the NTAuth store. The NTAuth enterprise trust store is designated trust store in AD which is used to determine which certification authorities to trust specifically for authenticating user to the network. For 5) it means all the Certs should be valid, not revoked and issued by a trusted Certification Authority.
Most of the organizations I have worked with to implement smart card logon use certificates from a third-party certificate authority outside their organization.  To enable smart card logon you need to publish these external certificates into the appropriate certificate stores.  The first step is to get your computers and users to “trust” the certificates from the third-party.  This is done by taking the third-party root certificate, the certificate from the top of the external third-party hierarchy (offline Root CA in diagram below), and publishing to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. (This step is mandatory for smart card logon to work)
This can be accomplished in two ways.  (1) You can configure a Group Policy to publish the new root certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store on all computers or (2) you can publish it to Active Directory using CERTUTIL or the Enterprise PKI snap-in.
To use the Enterprise PKI snap-in right-click on “Enterprise PKI” and select Manage AD Containers. Select “Certificate Authorities Container” tab and click the Add button and navigate to the certificate file you want to add.
NOTE – If you have an internal PKI infrastructure the snap-in will load quickly.  If you do not it will be very slow because it is trying to contact your internal (non-existent) PKI.  Be patient.
image
To use CERTUTIL to publish the certificate to the Certificate Authorities container type the following command:
CERTUTIL -f -dspublish RootCA
To use Group Policy to publish the certificates follow the instructions in the following article:
Use Policy to Distribute Certificates
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772491.aspx
The identity certificates used by the domain controllers and smart cards are issued from one or more Issuing CAs.  Next you need to place the certificate(s) from each of the Issuing CAs in the appropriate stores.  You need to publish the certificates from each of the issuing CAs into the NTAuthCertificates store.  This is can be accomplished by using CERTUTIL or the Enterprise PKI mmc snap-in.
To use the Enterprise PKI snap-in right-click on “Enterprise PKI” and select Manage AD Containers. Select “NTAuthCertificates” tab and click the Add button and navigate to the certificate you want to add.
To use CERTUTIL type the following command:
CERTUTIL -f -dspublish NTAuthCA
The final step is to publish the certificates from each of the Issuing CAs into the Intermediate Certificate Authorities store on each computer.  This can be accomplished using Group Policy or publishing the certificates into Active Directory using CERTUTIL or the Enterprise PKI snap-in.
To use the Enterprise PKI snap-in right-click on “Enterprise PKI” and select Manage AD Containers. Select “AIA Container” tab and click the Add button and navigate to the certificate you want to add.
To use CERTUTIL type the following command:
CERTUTIL -f -dspublish SubCA
To view all certificaes in NTAuth
certutil  -viewstore   -enterprise   NTAuth
(To publish a certificate to NTAuth, you can use either a group policy object (recommended) or use the certutil tool. Using certutil you will need Enterprise Admin permissions for the domain.

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This is article is from August 2023

Guidelines for enabling smart card logon with third-party certification authorities

  • Article

This article provides some guidelines for enabling smart card logon with third-party certification authorities.

Applies to:   Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10 - all editions
Original KB number:   281245

Summary

You can enable a smart card logon process with Microsoft Windows 2000 and a non-Microsoft certification authority (CA) by following the guidelines in this article. Limited support for this configuration is described later in this article.

More information

Requirements

Smart Card Authentication to Active Directory requires that Smartcard workstations, Active Directory, and Active Directory domain controllers be configured properly. Active Directory must trust a certification authority to authenticate users based on certificates from that CA. Both Smartcard workstations and domain controllers must be configured with correctly configured certificates.

As with any PKI implementation, all parties must trust the Root CA to which the issuing CA chains. Both the domain controllers and the smartcard workstations trust this root.

Active Directory and domain controller configuration

  • Required: Active Directory must have the third-party issuing CA in the NTAuth store to authenticate users to active directory.
  • Required: Domain controllers must be configured with a domain controller certificate to authenticate smartcard users.
  • Optional: Active Directory can be configured to distribute the third-party root CA to the trusted root CA store of all domain members using the Group Policy.

Smartcard certificate and workstation requirements

  • Required: All of the smartcard requirements outlined in the "Configuration Instructions" section must be met, including the text formatting of the fields. Smartcard authentication fails if they are not met.
  • Required: The smartcard and private key must be installed on the smartcard.

Configuration instructions

  1. Export or download the third-party root certificate. How to obtaining the party root certificate varies by vendor. The certificate must be in Base64 Encoded X.509 format.

  2. Add the third-party root CA to the trusted roots in an Active Directory Group Policy object. To configure Group Policy in the Windows 2000 domain to distribute the third-party CA to the trusted root store of all domain computers:

    1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
    2. In the left pane, locate the domain in which the policy you want to edit is applied.
    3. Right-click the domain, and then click Properties.
    4. Click the Group Policy tab.
    5. Click the Default Domain Policy Group Policy object, and then click Edit. A new window opens.
    6. In the left pane, expand the following items:
      • Computer Configuration
      • Windows Settings
      • Security Settings
      • Public Key Policy
    7. Right-click Trusted Root Certification Authorities.
    8. Select All Tasks, and then click Import.
    9. Follow the instructions in the wizard to import the certificate.
    10. Click OK.
    11. Close the Group Policy window.

  3. Add the third party issuing the CA to the NTAuth store in Active Directory.

    The smart card logon certificate must be issued from a CA that is in the NTAuth store. By default, Microsoft Enterprise CAs are added to the NTAuth store.

    • If the CA that issued the smart card logon certificate or the domain controller certificates is not properly posted in the NTAuth store, the smart card logon process does not work. The corresponding answer is "Unable to verify the credentials".

    • The NTAuth store is located in the Configuration container for the forest. For example, a sample location is as follows: LDAP://server1.name.com/CN=NTAuthCertificates,CN=Public Key Services,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=name,DC=com

    • By default, this store is created when you install a Microsoft Enterprise CA. The object can also be created manually by using ADSIedit.msc in the Windows 2000 Support tools or by using LDIFDE. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

      295663 How to import third-party certification authority (CA) certificates into the Enterprise NTAuth store

    • The relevant attribute is cACertificate, which is an octet String, multiple-valued list of ASN-encoded certificates.

      After you put the third-party CA in the NTAuth store, Domain-based Group Policy places a registry key (a thumbprint of the certificate) in the following location on all computers in the domain:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\EnterpriseCertificates\NTAuth\Certificates

      It is refreshed every eight hours on workstations (the typical Group Policy pulse interval).

  4. Request and install a domain controller certificate on the domain controller(s). Each domain controller that is going to authenticate smartcard users must have a domain controller certificate.

    If you install a Microsoft Enterprise CA in an Active Directory forest, all domain controllers automatically enroll for a domain controller certificate. For more information about requirements for domain controller certificates from a third-party CA, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

    291010 Requirements for domain controller certificates from a third-party CA

     Note

    The domain controller certificate is used for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) authentication, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) encryption, Remote Procedure Call (RPC) signing, and the smart card logon process. Using a non-Microsoft CA to issue a certificate to a domain controller may cause unexpected behavior or unsupported results. An improperly formatted certificate or a certificate with the subject name absent may cause these or other capabilities to stop responding.

  5. Request a smart card certificate from the third-party CA.

    Enroll for a certificate from the third-party CA that meets the stated requirements. The method for enrollment varies by the CA vendor.

    The smart card certificate has specific format requirements:

    • The CRL Distribution Point (CDP) location (where CRL is the Certification Revocation List) must be populated, online, and available. For example:

      Output
      [1]CRL Distribution Point  
Distribution Point Name:  
Full Name:  
URL=http://server1.name.com/CertEnroll/caname.crl

    • Key Usage = Digital Signature

    • Basic Constraints [Subject Type=End Entity, Path Length Constraint=None] (Optional)

    • Enhanced Key Usage =

      • Client Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2)
        (The client authentication OID) is only required if a certificate is used for SSL authentication.)
      • Smart Card Logon (1.3.6.1.4.1.311.20.2.2)

    • Subject Alternative Name = Other Name: Principal Name= (UPN). For example:
      UPN = user1@name.com
      The UPN OtherName OID is: "1.3.6.1.4.1.311.20.2.3"
      The UPN OtherName value: Must be ASN1-encoded UTF8 string

    • Subject = Distinguished name of user. This field is a mandatory extension, but the population of this field is optional.

  6. There are two predefined types of private keys. These keys are Signature Only(AT_SIGNATURE) and Key Exchange(AT_KEYEXCHANGE). Smartcard logon certificates must have a Key Exchange(AT_KEYEXCHANGE) private key type in order for smartcard logon to function correctly.

  7. Install smartcard drivers and software to the smartcard workstation.

    Make sure that the appropriate smartcard reader device and driver software are installed on the smartcard workstation. It varies by smartcard reader vendor.

  8. Install the third-party smartcard certificate to the smartcard workstation.

    If the smartcard was not already put into the smartcard user's personal store in the enrollment process in step 4, then you must import the certificate into the user's personal store. To do so:

    1. Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) that contains the Certificates snap-in.

    2. In the console tree, under Personal, click Certificates.

    3. On the All Tasks menu, click Import to start the Certificate Import Wizard.

    4. Click the file that contains the certificates that you are importing.

       Note

      If the file that contains the certificates is a Personal Information Exchange (PKCS #12) file, type the password that you used to encrypt the private key, click to select the appropriate check box if you want the private key to be exportable, and then turn on strong private key protection (if you want to use this feature).

       Note

      To turn on strong private key protection, you must use the Logical Certificate Stores view mode.

    5. Select the option to automatically put the certificate in a certificate store based on the type of certificate.

  9. Install the third-party smartcard certificate onto the smartcard. This installation varies according to Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) and by smartcard vendor. See the vendor's documentations for instructions.

  10. Log on to the workstation with the smartcard.

Possible issues

During smartcard logon, the most common error message seen is:

The system could not log you on. Your credentials could not be verified.

This message is a generic error and can be the result of one or more of below issues.

Certificate and configuration problems

  • The domain controller has no domain controller certificate.

  • The SubjAltName field of the smartcard certificate is badly formatted. If the information in the SubjAltName field appears as Hexadecimal / ASCII raw data, the text formatting is not ASN1 / UTF-8.

  • The domain controller has an otherwise malformed or incomplete certificate.

  • For each of the following conditions, you must request a new valid domain controller certificate. If your valid domain controller certificate has expired, you may renew the domain controller certificate, but this process is more complex and typically more difficult than if you request a new domain controller certificate.

    • The domain controller certificate has expired.
    • The domain controller has an untrusted certificate. If the NTAuth store does not contain the certification authority (CA) certificate of the domain controller certificate's issuing CA, you must add it to the NTAuth store or obtain a DC certificate from an issuing CA whose certificate resides in the NTAuth store.

    If the domain controllers or smartcard workstations do not trust the Root CA to which the domain controller's certificate chains, then you must configure those computers to trust that Root CA.

  • The smartcard has an untrusted certificate. If the NTAuth store does not contain the CA certificate of the smartcard certificate's issuing CA, you must add it to the NTAuth store or obtain a smartcard certificate from an issuing CA whose certificate resides in the NTAuth store.

    If the domain controllers or smartcard workstations do not trust the Root CA to which the user's smartcard certificate chains, then you must configure those computers to trust that Root CA.

  • The certificate of the smart card is not installed in the user's store on the workstation. The certificate that is stored on the smartcard must reside on the smartcard workstation in the profile of the user who is logging on with the smart card.

     Note

    You do not have to store the private key in the user's profile on the workstation. It is only required to be stored on the smartcard.

  • The correct smartcard certificate or private key is not installed on the smartcard. The valid smartcard certificate must be installed on the smartcard with the private key and the certificate must match a certificate stored in the smartcard user's profile on the smartcard workstation.

  • The certificate of the smart card cannot be retrieved from the smartcard reader. It can be a problem with the smartcard reader hardware or the smartcard reader's driver software. Verify that you can use the smartcard reader vendor's software to view the certificate and the private key on the smartcard.

  • The smartcard certificate has expired.

  • No User Principal Name (UPN) is available in the SubjAltName extension of the smartcard certificate.

  • The UPN in SubjAltName field of the smartcard certificate is badly formatted. If the information in the SubjAltName appears as Hexadecimal / ASCII raw data, the text formatting is not ASN1 / UTF-8.

  • The smartcard has an otherwise malformed or incomplete certificate. For each of these conditions, you must request a new valid smartcard certificate and install it onto the smartcard and into the profile of the user on the smartcard workstation. The smartcard certificate must meet the requirements described earlier in this article, which include a correctly formatted UPN field in the SubjAltName field.

    If your valid smartcard certificate has expired, you may also renew the smartcard certificate, which is more complex and difficult than requesting a new smartcard certificate.

  • The user does not have a UPN defined in their Active Directory user account. The user's account in the Active Directory must have a valid UPN in the userPrincipalName property of the smartcard user's Active Directory user account.

  • The UPN in the certificate does not match the UPN defined in the user's Active Directory user account. Correct the UPN in the smartcard user's Active Directory user account or reissue the smartcard certificate so that the UPN value in the SubjAltName field the matches the UPN in smartcard users' Active Directory user account. We recommend that the smart card UPN matches the userPrincipalName user account attribute for third-party CAs. However, if the UPN in the certificate is the "implicit UPN" of the account (format samAccountName@domain_FQDN), the UPN does not have to match the userPrincipalName property explicitly.

Revocation checking problems

If the revocation checking fails when the domain controller validates the smart card logon certificate, the domain controller denies the logon. The domain controller may return the error message mentioned earlier or the following error message:

The system could not log you on. The smartcard certificate used for authentication was not trusted.

 Note

Failing to find and download the Certificate Revocation List (CRL), an invalid CRL, a revoked certificate, and a revocation status of "unknown" are all considered revocation failures.

The revocation check must succeed from both the client and the domain controller. Make sure the following are true:

  • Revocation checking is not turned off.

    Revocation check for the built-in revocation providers cannot be turned off. If a custom installable revocation provider is installed, it must be turned on.

  • Every CA Certificate except the root CA in the certificate chain contains a valid CDP extension in the certificate.

  • The CRL has a Next Update field and the CRL is up to date. You can check that the CRL is online at the CDP and valid by downloading it from Internet Explorer. You should be able to download and view the CRL from any of the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) CDPs in Internet Explorer from both the smartcard workstation(s) and the domain controller(s).

Verify that each unique HTTP and FTP CDP that is used by a certificate in your enterprise is online and available.

To verify that a CRL is online and available from an FTP or HTTP CDP:

  1. To open the Certificate in question, double-click on the .cer file or double-click the certificate in the store.
  2. Click the Details tab, and select the CRL Distribution Point field.
  3. In the bottom pane, highlight the full FTP or HTTP Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and copy it.
  4. Open Internet Explorer and paste the URL into the Address bar.
  5. When you receive the prompt, select the option to Open the CRL.
  6. Make sure that there is a Next Update field in the CRL and the time in the Next Update field has not passed.

To download or verify that a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) CDP is valid, you must write a script or an application to download the CRL. After you download and open the CRL, make sure that there is a Next Update field in the CRL and the time in the Next Update field has not passed.

Support

Microsoft Product Support Services does not support the third-party CA smart card logon process if it is determined that one or more of the following items contributes to the problem:

  • Improper certificate format.
  • Certificate status or revocation status not available from the third-party CA.
  • Certificate enrollment issues from a third-party CA.
  • The third-party CA cannot publish to Active Directory.
  • A third-party CSP.

Additional information

The client computer checks the domain controller's certificate. The local computer therefore downloads a CRL for the domain controller certificate into the CRL cache.

The offline logon process does not involve certificates, only cached credentials.

To force the NTAuth store to be immediately populated on a local computer instead of waiting for the next Group Policy propagation, run the following command to initiate a Group Policy update:

Console
  dsstore.exe -pulse   

You can also dump out the smart card information in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP by using the Certutil.exe -scinfo command.

 

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