System information

PC-Duo Host Guide
24
Authentication
In the PC-Duo model, PC-Duo applications that request information and services are
considered “clients” and those that provide information and services are considered
“servers”. For example, the PC-Duo Master is considered a client when it connects to and
requests a list of Hosts from a PC-Duo Gateway. In turn, the PC-Duo Gateway is
considered a client when it connects to and requests information from a PC-Duo Host in
the same domain.
Connection
Client
Server
Peer-to-peer
Master
Host
Gateway-managed (Gateway & Host are in same domain)
 Master-
Gateway
relationship
Master
Gateway
 Gateway-
Host
relationship
Gateway
Host
Gateway-managed (Gateway & Host are not in same domain)
 Master-
Gateway
relationship
Master
Gateway
 Gateway-
Host
relationship
Host
Gateway
When PC-Duo Host is not in the same domain as the Gateway, the relationship is
automatically reversed: The Host is programmed to be the client and will reach out to the
Gateway (see “Firewall-friendly connections” for more information about PC-Duo firewall-
friendly connections).
To guarantee security in the PC-Duo environment, it is critical that PC-Duo components
acting as servers validate the credentials of users of PC-Duo components acting as
clients before they provide access or data. The burden is placed on the client to
authenticate itself to the server. PC-Duo implements two types of authentication to
support this:
 “Identity Authentication”
 “Endpoint Authentication”
Identity Authentication
In general, this operation answers the following security question: How does the server
know who the client is? A PC-Duo application acting as a server will not provide access