An Easy Way to Determine the Authentication Methods Used by Websites

Q: Is there a simple tool I can use to find out the authentication method (e.g., Kerberos, NTLM, Basic authentication) that a website supports?

A: To determine the authentication method used by a website, you can use the Kerberos Authentication Tester. You can download this freeware tool from Michel Barneveld's website. Figure 1 shows the tool's UI.

Figure 1: Using the Kerberos Authentication Tester

Besides displaying the authentication method used by a website, the Kerberos Authentication Tester displays the authorization header, which includes details about the Kerberos and NTLM authentication packages. You can look at the authorization header details by clicking the details link on the Test tab. From the tool's Tickets tab, you can look at the content of the current Kerberos ticket cache and delete Kerberos tickets.