Context Establishment

Having acquired security credentials, the two communicating peers establish a security context using their credentials. Conceptually, a single, joint context is established, but each peer maintains a local copy of the context in its JGSS runtime environment. Context establishment involves the initiating peer authenticating itself to the accepting peer. The initiator can optionally request mutual authentication, in which case the acceptor in turn authenticates itself to the initiator.

When context establishment is complete, the established context embodies state information such as shared cryptographic keys that enable subsequent secure message exchange between the two peers.