University of Houston
Department of Computer Science
In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
will defend his dissertation proposal
Grid Authentication:
A Case for Generality, Transparency and Scalability
Abstract
Grids are persistent infrastructures for securely sharing distributed and diverse hardware and software resources. This research evaluates existing standard approaches to provide authentication for users of a computational grid and the current status of security tools for grid authentication. Based on the experience with constructing a campus grid at the University of Houston, I describe weaknesses with current approaches that were identified and open security vulnerabilities. I present arguments emphasizing the need for general, transparent and scalable single sign-on schemes for grids, and propose how this may be achieved. The solution should be “simple” in that it relieves the end users and the system administrators from most of the complex tasks associated with grid authentication. The scheme should be “pervasive” in the sense that the user can establish his or her unique user identity in the grid without having to be restricted to one sign-on resource. The solution should moreover build upon existing standards such as those employed by the Grid Security Infrastructure authentication mechanism of the Globus toolkit.
Date: Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Time: 3:00 PM
Place: 550-PGH
Faculty, students, and the general public are invited.
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Barbara M. Chapman