Backing Up the Kerberos Database

As with any file, it is possible that your Kerberos database could become corrupted. If this happens on one of the slave KDCs, you might never notice, since the next automatic propagation of the database would install a fresh copy. However, if it happens to the master KDC, the corrupted database would be propagated to all of the slaves during the next propagation. For this reason, MIT recommends that you back up your Kerberos database regularly. Because the master KDC is continuously dumping the database to a file in order to propagate it to the slave KDCs, it is a simple matter to have a cron job periodically copy the dump file to a secure machine elsewhere on your network. (Of course, it is important to make the host where these backups are stored as secure as your KDCs, and to encrypt its transmission across your network.) Then if your database becomes corrupted, you can load the most recent dump onto the master KDC. (See Restoring a Kerberos Database from a Dump File.)