Generic Security Service Application Programming I
<security, programming> (GSS-API) An application level interface (
API) to system security services.
It provides a generic interface to services which may be provided by a variety of different security mechanisms.
Vanilla GSS-API supports security contexts between two entities (known as "principals").
GSS-API is a draft internet standard which is being developed in the Common Authentication Technology Working Group (cat-wg) of the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Initial specifications for GSS-API appeared in
RFC 1508 and
RFC 1509.
Subsequent revisions appeared in several draft standards documents.
(http://www.dstc.qut.edu.au/~barton/work/project.html).