3.2.1 Abstract Data Model

This section describes a conceptual model of possible data organization that an implementation maintains to participate in this protocol. The described organization is provided to facilitate the explanation of how the protocol behaves. This document does not mandate that implementations adhere to this model as long as their external behavior is consistent with what is described in this document.

The following variable is internal to the server implementation and is not sent to the client.

AUTH_STATE: The server uses this variable to store its current state. The various states in which the server can be are as follows:

  1. will_authenticate_not_received

  2. send_command_sent

  3.  challenge_data_sent

  4. authentication_complete

will_authenticate_not_received denotes the start state, and authentication_complete denotes the end state. send_command_sent and challenge_data_sent are intermediate states. Section 3.2.5 specifies how AUTH_STATE is used in the context of the Telnet: NTLM Authentication Protocol.